Dow Industrials Flirt With Peak On Latest Climb
THE DOW JONES Industrial Average bypassed its high within minutes of the market open, then again near the close, but trimmed its gains to finish shy of the record.</br></br>The indicator, which tracks 30 blue-chip companies, posted an intraday high of 11728.46, up 5.48 points from its January 2000 peak. But on the day, the Dow industrials finished up 29.21 points, or 0.29%, at 11718.45, up 9.3% on the year.</br></br>Among the Dow average's strongest components were Caterpillar and General Motors. GM rose after Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda, which owns 9.9% of GM's shares outstanding, said it was considering purchasing as many as 12 million more shares of the auto maker. Tracinda also said it supports an alliance between GM and Renault-Nissan.</br></br>However, the three names with the biggest influence weightings in the price-weighted Dow industrial average -- International Business Machines, Altria Group and Boeing -- all finished the day off less than 0.5%. Even modest gains at one or two of those companies would have sent the Dow industrial average over its record, which now stands just 4.53 points away, at 11722.98.</br></br>"The Dow is teasing everybody right now," said Kenneth Tower, chief market strategist at the online-brokerage firm CyberTrader.