Stocks fall as investors remain unsure

Investors pushed stocks lower today, knocking the Nasdaq composite index to its lowest level since April.

Blue-chips fell on a report that industrial production in July slipped for the 10th straight month, although the loss was smaller than expected. Meanwhile, tech stocks stumbled on a range of news in the semiconductor sector.

After being continuously disappointed by companies’ second-quarter earnings results and hearing a litany of profit warnings for the current quarter, investors are not ready to make major commitments on Wall Street, said analysts.

More than any news event, investors’ lack of confidence in the market was responsible for today’s decline and lighter-than-normal trading volume.

’’There aren’t a lot of players here. When the indexes fall it’s because there is a lack of interest, not because everyone is dumping shares,’’ said Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 66.22, or 0.6%, at 10,345.95.

The Nasdaq fell 45.64, or 2.3%, to 1,918.89, its lowest close since April 16 when the index ended at 1,909.57 and its seventh loss in the past eight sessions.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, Wall Street’s broadest measure, declined 8.71, or 0.7%, to 1,178.02.

Industrial production at the nation’s factories, mines and utilities slipped just 0.1% in July, a smaller-than-expected decline and a possible indication that the manufacturing sector could be gaining strength. The news pushed the Dow up early before it headed lower later in the day.

’’People are disbelieving of anything positive. Period. A year-and-a-half ago, nobody would believe a negative thing, and now we’re at a point when nobody believes anything positive,’’ said Scott Bleier, chief investment strategist at Prime Charter Ltd.

Stocks of major industrial companies were mixed. Caterpillar climbed dlrs 1.37 to dlrs 55.23. But Houston-based energy giant Enron tumbled dlrs 2.68 to dlrs 40.25 after chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling unexpectedly resigned yesterday.

Blue chip trading was choppy with the Dow industrials weaving between slim gains and bigger losses for much of the session. American Express fell 73 cents to dlrs 38.66, while Coca-Cola gained dlrs 1.54 to dlrs 47.58.

The tech sector dropped on a string of news from the semiconductor industry and the fact that investors aren’t convinced that better times are ahead for the battered stocks.

Among the tech losers was Motorola, which fell dlrs 1.01 to dlrs 17.40 on news that it will end production at its semiconductor plant in Mesa, Ariz., over the next 2.5 years, resulting in job losses for an undetermined number of the 1,200 employees.

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices stumbled 75 cents to dlrs 14.75 after IBM announced it was switching to Intel chips for its computers. But Intel also fell, down 57 cents at dlrs 29.78, as the news heightened Wall Street’s fears about an upcoming price war between AMD and Intel. IBM slipped dlrs 1.19 to dlrs 105.01.

There were few tech gainers today - among them Applied Materials, up just 9 cents at dlrs 43.74, on better-than-expected earnings and positive assessments by Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. The brokerages said business was improving for the chip equipment maker and recommended investors buy shares.

There were some blue chip gainers, as well, including Federated Department Stores, which rose 93 cents to dlrs 38.33 after beating second-quarter earnings expectations by 2 cents a share. Federated also affirmed its estimates for the third quarter.

Despite the decline in the major indexes, advancing issues outnumbered decliners 16 to 15 on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume came to 1.05 billion shares, compared with the 960.22 million shares traded on yesterday.

The Russell 2000 index, which measures the performance of smaller company stocks, fell 1.24 to 478.95.