A welcome assessment of America's economic health sent blue chip stocks rising on Wall Street yesterday, but investors again punished technology issues for their bleak earnings prospects.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 121.53 to 10,629.11, but the Nasdaq composite index fell 27.60 to 2,707.38. The Nasdaq's decline gave it yet another new low for this year.
The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 5.68 to 1,341.77.
Despite the decline in tech stocks, investors traded with cautious optimism on new evidence that US economic growth is slowing, analysts said. The Commerce Department said the gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent last summer, the slowest rate in four years and a steep decline from the rocketing 5.6 per cent registered in the second quarter.
Wall Street considered the report good news because the slowdown could be an incentive for the Federal Reserve to declare at its December 19th meeting that inflation is less of a risk to the economy. That could be a precursor of lower interest rates.
