Dow Industrials Finish 1st Half With 7.7% Gain
STOCK INDEXES finished the quarter with a whimper, but still turned in one of their strongest quarterly performances in years.</br></br>With a decline of 3.61 points, to 8985.44 yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average failed to return to the 9000 level. Yet its red-hot spring rally left the blue-chip index up 12% for the past three months and up 7.7% for the first half of the year. It was the first time the industrial average has finished a first half with a gain since 1999, the last year of the bull market that ended more than three years ago.</br></br>U.S. stock mutual funds jumped an average of more than 17% for the quarter, the strongest performance since the fourth quarter of 1999, according to preliminary numbers calculated by Lipper Inc. through Friday. (Lipper completes the final quarterly tally today.)</br></br>Some market analysts view the recent rally as a positive sign for those hoping the indexes can break a three-year streak of annual losses. But analysts also noted that stocks now seem to be drifting sideways after hitting a peak on June 17. For much of the spring, professional investors bought stocks in hopes that government stimulation would provoke an economic recovery. Now, increasingly, money managers are in a "show me" mode, looking for signs of the recovery.</br></br>Major companies are poised to begin announcing second-quarter results in about a week, at which time they also will be providing investors with readings on whether business conditions really are improving.