Dow Jones Average Closes Down 13 Points ; Treasury Bond Market Rallies, but Computer-Generated Trading Hurts Stock Prices
Blue-chip stocks turned their backs on a rally in the Treasury bond market and ended lower in a day of tentative trading.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 13.39 points to close at 3849.59. On the broader market, advancing issues squeezed ahead of declining stocks by an 11-10 ratio, reflecting the session's mixed tone.</br></br>The blue-chip barometer spent much of the session hovering around Monday's close of 3862.98 but was knocked down in midafternoon by computer-generated sell programs before recovering some ground at the close, traders said.</br></br>"Even though they're down, I'd characterize it as a basically neutral day," said George Pirrone, senior trader at Dreyfus Corp.</br></br>Treasuries were firm after a smaller-than-expected rise in the core rate of the February producer price index, the key gauge of prices at the wholesale level. The core rate excludes volatile food and energy prices. A big jump in prices would have put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise short-term interest rates, as it did early last month, to curb inflation.