Wall Street stumbles through lifeless session

Wall Street stumbled through a mostly lifeless session today as bargain hunters gave technology stocks a moderate lift but struggling defence contractors kept blue chips under pressure.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 21.48, or 0.2%, to 10,580.14, after gaining 35.25 on Wednesday.

The broader gauges were higher. The Nasdaq composite index gained 9.59, or 0.5%, to close at 2,032.57. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 1.24, or 0.1%, to end at 1,144.91.

A Commerce Department report that orders for big-ticket items from the nation’s factories fell by 1.8% in January limited investors’ enthusiasm, but analysts were not concerned that this presaged a steeper decline.

While the major indexes have registered losses in five of the past six sessions, the market has shown great resiliency, said Stephen Carl, principal and head of equity trading at The Williams Capital Group.

“I don’t think the numbers are so out of whack. But it’s giving more cause to take some profits,” Carl said.

”We’ve had a fine run-up, we’re not seeing crazy swings, so (the market’s) handling everything well. I don’t see anything horrible on the horizon now.”

The drop in orders for durable goods – costly manufactured products expected to last at least three years – was largely due to a plunge in demand for commercial and military aircraft. Economists had forecast a 1.4% rise.

Investors found the news disheartening following a better-than-expected 1.6% advance in December.

But some economists suggested the report overstated the declines: Excluding orders for transportation equipment like planes and cars, orders for other durable goods rose by a solid 2%.

But factory employment remains a concern.

Separately, the Labour Department said new claims for unemployment benefits last week rose by 6,000 to 350,000, highlighting the uneven recovery taking place in the jobs market.

On the Nasdaq, Oracle gained 9 cents to 13.28 after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block its proposed 9.4 billion takeover of software rival PeopleSoft Inc. PeopleSoft declined 35 cents to 21.78 on the news.

Genentech surged 7.02, or 7.3%, to 103.10 after the Food and Drug Administration approved its new colon cancer drug, Avastin.

Other biotech stocks rose after the approval, which marks the first major success for a new class of treatment that starves tumours by preventing new blood vessels from forming around them.

Dragging down the Dow were defence contractors Boeing and United Technologies, which are suffering the impact of the US Army’s recent cancellation of its Comanche helicopter programme.

Boeing fell 1.38, or 3.2%, to 42.44, and United Technologies, parent company of Sikorsky Aircraft, declined 2.42, or 2.6%, to 89.88.

The Walt Disney Co was up 43 cents at 26.73, a day after the California Public Employees’ Retirement System issued a highly critical statement that called the entertainment conglomerate’s performance dismal.

CalPERS, the largest US public pension fund, joined several other institutional shareholders by saying it would withhold its votes for chief executive Michael Eisner’s re-election to the board.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners more than 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Volume was light, with 1.37 billion shares traded, compared with 1.35 billion shares on Wednesday.

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks smaller company stocks, was up 4.82, or 0.8%, at 583.86.