Short Week Ends With Small Gains

Say one thing about Thursday's activity on Wall Street: It was consistent. On a day characterized by sluggish trading and slow progress, all of the major indexes posted gains within a hair of each other, and that nip and tuck performance was echoed by major tech issues. Cisco Systems rose 26 cents, or 1.1%, to $23.82; Dell was up 23 cents, or 0.7%, to $35.10; Intel was up 24 cents, or 0.9%, to $28.64; and Microsoft rose 30 cents, or 1.1%, to $26.77. Similarly, the Nasdaq-100 trading stock was up 26 cents, or 0.1%, to $36.84, on feeble volume of 56.9 million shares.

Thursday's gains reversed Wednesday's modest losses as all of the averages closed higher for the short week, with the markets taking a break Friday in observance of the death of former President Ronald Reagan. Positive forecasts from FedEx and Procter & Gamble contributed to the day's results, as did a report indicating that continuous unemployment claims dropped by 106,000.

For the day, the Nasdaq gained 9.26, or 0.5%, but fell short of the crucial 2,000 level, closing at 1,999.87, up 1% for the week. Meanwhile, the InformationWeek 100 rose 1.39, or 0.4%, to close at 319.33, up 0.7% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial average was up 41.66, or 0.4%, to 10,410.10, representing a gain for the week of 1.6%, and the S&P 500 rose 5.14, or 0.5%, to close at 1,136.47, up 1.2% for the week.