Stocks Mixed in Sluggish Trading After Fed's Latest Inflation News
NEW YORK -- Blue-chip stocks finished modestly lower in one of the most gently traded sessions this year.</br></br>Investors apparently decided, after being handed data expected to provide insight into what the Federal Reserve plans to do with interest rates this month, that they hadn't seen enough information to guide their investing.</br></br>A few rate-sensitive growth stocks wobbled in the session, including General Electric, off 2 1/16 to 154, AT&T, which lost 1 3/16 to 38 7/16, and General Motors, down 1 1/2 to 86 9/16.</br></br>Banks also suffered declines. Chase Manhattan lost 1 to 73 1/4. Citigroup gave up 1 1/2 to 58 5/8. FleetBoston Financial fell 15/16 to 33 1/8. But they weren't the kind of vigorous moves usually associated with downbeat inflation data.</br></br>Ahead of the session, the federal government released a report that showed worker productivity rose 2.4% in the first quarter this year, well off the 6.9% growth pace of the fourth quarter, and south of the forecasts of 3.5% growth. The same report also showed unit-labor costs picked up during the quarter, suggestive of the sort of inflation pressures likely to spur the Fed to active management of the economy's expansion through further -- and likely larger -- rate increases.