Tuesday's markets: Industrials set another high, climbing 10.44
As the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to its fifth consecutive record, other stock-market indexes were shaken by profit-taking ahead of important economic data to be released this week.</br></br>But the prospect of a nasty surprise from producer or consumer price data didn't rattle bond investors, who sent bond prices up and yields -- which move in the opposite direction of prices -- down to levels not seen in eight months.</br></br>The Dow edged 10.44 higher to 6266.04, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 2.31 to 729.56. Despite a report released late Monday showing that demand for computer chips grew more rapidly than expected in October, profit-taking drove tech stocks lower late yesterday. That pushed the Nasdaq Composite Index down 6.14 to 1256.53.</br></br>"It was a very strange day," said Jack Baker, managing director of stock trading for Furman Selz. "The bond market looked like it was never going to quit, but selling in the [stock] futures pit weighed on the stock market." Traders said the selling appeared to come from Salomon Brothers. Salomon declined to comment.</br></br>But the bond market generated most of the fireworks, as the yield on the bellwether 30-year bond fell below the psychologically important 6.5% level to 6.44%.