Industrial Shares Climb 24.19 Points But Traders Are Wary of a Reversal
NEW YORK -- The stock market's rally since Friday has cheered traders, but they're wary that a bad economic indicator could send things the other way.</br></br>In a follow-through to Friday's 56.82-point surge, the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday gained 24.19, ending at a post-crash, 19-month high of 2463.89.</br></br>The Dow industrials haven't been higher since they finished at 2508.16 on Oct. 13, 1987, the day before the Dow slid 95 points on the way to the Oct. 19 crash.</br></br>Some big institutional investors, and a few individual investors, were drawn to stocks after they missed most of Friday's rally spurred by a surprisingly mild inflation report. Some traders saw a little bit of buying "panic" by some investors.</br></br>Still, volume was typically moderate for a Monday, with 179,350,000 New York Stock Exchange shares changing hands, down from Friday's 221,490,000. Advancing issues outpaced decliners by 919 to 591; many technical analysts aren't convinced of a strong market rally unless the advancers' category tops 1,000, as it did Friday.