Stocks Overcome Early Weakness, Close Higher in Moderate Trading
The stock market broke out of its Monday meltdown syndrome as prices advanced in moderate trading yesterday.</br></br>After a brief drop of about 25 points as trading got under way, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reversed course. The average recovered all of its early losses by midday and climbed pretty steadily throughout the rest of the session, ending 20.56 higher at 2014.09.</br></br>Two weeks ago yesterday, the stock market crashed as the industrial average suffered its biggest drop ever, 508 points. After a brief recovery that week, the average tumbled nearly 157 points last Monday. But it moved higher during the rest of the week and again yesterday, gaining a total of more than 220 points.</br></br>Yesterday's advance went beyond the blue chips, but it wasn't as broad as Friday's move. Yesterday, gainers on the New York Stock Exchange had less than a 2-to-1 lead over losers; Friday, they led by an overwhelming 8-to-1 margin.</br></br>Trading activity finally slowed after the surge in the past two weeks. Big Board volume fell to 176 million shares from 303.4 million Friday. It was the slowest day since Oct. 13, when 172.9 million shares changed hands.