Dow index at 1122

Press, 26 February 1983, Page 18

Dow index at 1122

NZPA New York The Dow Jones industrial average turned in a spectacular performance, and closed above the 1100 mark for the first time in history yesterday. "Anyone who was still on the fence about whether or not we are in a bull market threw in the sponge today." a leading broker said. The D-J average, the market's most widely quoted index. broke through the elusive 1100 level 20 minutes after the start of trading and continued to rally throughout the day. closing with a gain of almost 25 points at 1121.80. The previous record close was 1097.10 on February 14.

The rally was extremely broad-based, with advancing issues totalling more than 1150 compared with some 400 declines. Trading activity was the heaviest this month, and volume swelled to about 112 million shares from 84.1 million on Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial has touched above 1100 on an intra-day basis only twice before, on January 12 and February 15, but never managed to hold above that limit to the close. However, analysts said the stage was set for a decisive run at 1100 this week because of a confluence of encouraging news on both the economic and interest rate fronts. On Wednesday the Depart-

men! of Commerce reported a 4.5 per cent increase in durable goods orders in January, a greater than expected increase, and the largest monthly gain since September, 1980.

Investors were further encouraged by the report that initial unemployment claims fell to 472.000 in the week ended February 12 from 510,000 the previous week. New jobless claims have dropped six out of seven weeks recorded so far in 1983. On the interest rate front, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, testified in the Senate that the central bank's new money growth targets permit further interest rate declines.