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Nasdaq falters anew
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December 26, 2000: 5:07 p.m. ET
A new day brings more losses for the year's hardest-hit index
By Staff Writer Jake Ulick
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The Nasdaq composite index fell for the eighth time in 10 sessions Tuesday, bringing the once highflying technology index another day closer to its worst year in history.
With only three full trading sessions left in 2000, a disappointing year is guaranteed for the Nasdaq, 12 months after it surged a record 85.6 percent in 1999.
Oracle and Sun Microsystems, off more than 33 percent from their highs this year, faltered anew -- even as the Nasdaq rallied Friday. With corporate profits slowing with the economy, hard-hit technology stocks still don't appear cheap enough to spark steady buying.
 "The Nasdaq is probing for a bottom," Bryan Piskorowski, market analyst at Prudential Securities, told CNNfn's market coverage.
Its last bottom came Wednesday, when the Nasdaq finished at 2,332.78, a 20-month low that pushed it down more than 42 percent on the year.
On Tuesday, the Nasdaq shed 23.50 points, or almost 1 percent, to 2,493.52. The index needs to rise above 2,641, or 148 points, by Friday's close to keep it from recording its worst percentage loss in its 30-year history.
"It seems to me we're sort of limping toward the finish line," Ted Weisberg, of Seaport Securities, told CNN's Street Sweep.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 56.88 to 10,692.44. Strength in drug, tobacco and oil stocks narrowed the Dow's losses to 7 percent on the year. The Dow hasn't seen an annual loss since 1990.
The S&P 500 rose 9.24 to 1,315.19.
 Market breadth was mixed. Advancing issues on the New York Stock Exchange beat declining ones 1,754 to 1,166 as 801 million shares changed hands. Nasdaq losers outnumbered winners 2,319 to 1,705 as 1.5 billion shares traded.
In other markets, Treasury securities, which have outperformed stocks this year, edged lower. The dollar fell against the euro but rose versus the yen.
More tech selling
A steady sell-off since March has cut the Nasdaq composite index in half.
One session after rallying, Techs returned to their losing ways.
Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates) fell 94 cents to $30.94 and Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates) lost $1.56 to $30.31.
"We really got the market oversold after the last couple of weeks," Roy Blumberg, chief equity strategist at Stern Agee & Leach, told CNNfn's Market Call. "We have stretched the rubber band enough on the downside to get some upside bounce."
 Among stocks getting a bounce, Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO: Research, Estimates) rose $1.63 to $31.19 after saying U.S. holiday shopping volume at its Web properties nearly doubled this year compared with the year-ago period.
But those gains recouped just a fraction of Yahoo!'s losses since January, when the stock peaked above $250.
Stocks have fallen steadily amid warnings from companies about earnings and revenue shortfalls.
Among the latest disappointments, Louisiana-Pacific (LPX: Research, Estimates) fell 50 cents to $10 after warning about larger-than-expected losses in the current quarter.
And AK Steel (AKS: Research, Estimates) lost 88 cents to $9.13. The company said fourth-quarter earnings and revenue would drop beneath levels in the third quarter.
Amid hefty losses, stock investors have increasingly put their hopes on the Federal Reserve. The central bank left interest rates unchanged a week ago Tuesday. But the Fed left the door open to lowering borrowing costs next year.
"Stocks do a lot better with an accommodating Fed," Davis Katz, stock analyst at Matrix Asset Advisors, told CNNfn's In the Money.
Still, as the year winds down, not even a rally will keep the major indexes from posting disappointing performances.
The Nasdaq is down 39 percent year-to-date, setting it up for a finish worse than the 35.1 percent drop in 1974, its biggest annual decline on record.
Even amid this year's losses, sectors such as health care, real estate investment trusts and utility stocks have done well. The Dow Jones utility index rose to a record 416.11 Tuesday, a surge of more than 3 percent.
 In other winners, Merck (MRK: Research, Estimates) surged $2.19 to $92.69, Philip Morris (MO: Research, Estimates) gained $1.06 to $44.56 and Exxon-Mobil (XOM: Research, Estimates) advanced $1.75 $88.56.
The advances lifted the Dow, a day after markets were closed for the Christmas holiday.
The S&P 500, a broader market index, is down 10.5 percent this year, a finish that would hand it its worst return since 1977, when it fell 11.5 percent.
But from losses come prospects. PaineWebber says the market's declines have created one of the top five buying opportunities of the last 20 years. 
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