Stocks Slump With Code Orange News
U.S. stocks fell, leaving benchmark indexes with their longest weekly losing streak since October, as an unexpected drop in unemployment failed to relieve investor concern that a war with Iraq would slow economic growth and crimp corporate profits.</br></br>The Dow Jones industrial average fell 65.07, or 0.8 percent, to 7864.23, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 19.26, or 1.5 percent, to 1282.47. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index dropped 8.46, or 1 percent, to 829.69.</br></br>Stocks climbed after a Labor Department report that the unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent in January from an eight-year high, but the market turned south after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said terrorist attacks on Americans are more likely this month and raised the domestic threat indicator to the second- highest level.</br></br>Microsoft, the biggest software company and most valuable stock, shed 84 cents, to $46.58. American International Group, the largest insurer, fell $1.50, to $46.70. Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, slumped 48 cents, to $29.30.</br></br>Johnson & Johnson, the second-largest health-care company, shed 28 cents, to $51.84. The drugmaker may pay about $2 billion or $45 a share, to buy Scios, an unprofitable biotechnology business, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. That amounts to 30 percent more than Thursday's closing price for Scios, which sells the heart drug Natrecor. Scios surged $7.51, or 22 percent, to $42.20.