Blue chips take a tumble

US BLUE CHIPS tumbled at midday yesterday on negative brokerage notes on conglomerate General Electric and bearish comments from Hewlett-Packard, one session after stocks enjoyed a brief respite from six weeks of selling.

At around noon ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 128.11 to 7373.38 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index down 11.96 to 786.59. The Nasdaq composite index was up 1.74 to 1130.95.

Sharp selling in a few components following negative brokerage calls and other news kept the Dow industrials and S&P 500 under pressure.