Blue Chips Aid Market Action: Clamor Stocks Quiet Business News Bullish
NEW YORKÛÓA few blue chip stocks broke out of their doldrums Thursday, but the rest of the stock market continued marking time. Volume jumped about 15 per cent.</br></br>The investment-grade winners were enough to put the Dow Jones industrial average ahead 4.04 points at 942.13. It was the first time in a week that the Dow has moved as much as two points, even on an intra-session basis. Even so, the 30-stock average was split down the middle, with 14 winners, the same number of losers and two issues unchanged.</br></br>The broader averages showed much smaller changes. Standard & Poor's 500-stock composite rose 0.04 point to 102.55 and the New' York Stock Exchange index, which encompasses virtually every issue on the board, added 0.02 point to 58.16.</br></br>Turnover for the day climbed to 13.01 million shares from the 11.47 million traded on Wednesday. The ticker tape ran late at the opening and the close as trading stayed ahead of the day-earlier pace throughout the session.</br></br>Advancing and declining stocks -were still in a dogfight. For the third straight day, the losers came out on top, this time by 698 to 641. It was the first time in five sessions that the spread between winners and losers has been more than 50 issues. On Wednesday, 684 issues fell and 650 rose. There were 27 new 1968-9 highs, down from 43 a day earlier, and 19 new lows, up from 14.