Market Shuns Yule Gift: Prices Decline Moderately In Profit-Taking
The slock market was stingy with Christmas ptesents for investors today. Prices de-! dined moderately under the weight of continued profittaking.</br></br>In the last session before the holiday, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrials closed off 3.69 at 881.17. Declines on the New York Stock Exchange led advances 3 to 2</br></br>Trading on the Big Board was moderately active. Vol-: ume totaled 16.0 million j shares compared with 18.93 I million shares Wednesday.</br></br>| Analysts attributed the de-; cline to profit taking dn recent sharp gains and tax selling. Thursday was the last, day investors could establish profits for 1971 tax purposes.</br></br>The losers were airlines, tobaccos, and glamour stocks. Mail-order and retail were higher. All other groups were mixed.