Stocks Dive, Rebound; Dow Down 28 at Close
A jittery Wall Street pummeled stock prices for most of the trading session yesterday before bargain hunters helped pull prices back up toward the close.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrials lost 27.86 points, or 0.27 percent, to close at 10,275.53, but that was far above the intra-day low of about 10,080.</br></br>"Fear is the issue here, an innate insecurity that too much of a good thing has gone on for long," said Michael Farr, president and chief investment officer of Farr, Miller & Washington, a D.C.-based financial-consulting firm.</br></br>Bellwethers Microsoft and Intel took big hits. The software giant touched an intra-day low of 89-1/16 but finished at 91-7/16, a little lower than Monday's close of 92 1/8. Intel at one point dipped to 75 1/4 before recovering to finish at 77 1/2. On Monday it had closed at 78-3/16.</br></br>Investors, concerned about another round of interest-rate increases, have been driving stock prices down for the past few weeks. The Federal Reserve's rate-policy-setting committee will meet next week to evaluate the economy, though most Fed watchers believe there is little chance the Fed will raise rates next week.