April 14, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 30, 1423

NEW YORK, April 13: Stocks edged higher on Friday as investors bought into the battered technology sector, while US bonds rose after consumer sentiment and retail sales eased worries about a rate increase in May or June.

The dollar climbed to a one-week high against Japan’s yen after a Japanese Finance Ministry official hinted at displeasure with the yen’s export-damaging strength.

But US oil prices tumbled 6 percent amid speculative selling as the world’s No. 4 exporter Venezuela began regaining its footing after a week of turmoil that ended with the ouster of President Hugo Chavez.

Traders nibbled cautiously at tech, telecom and airline stocks, but the mood on Wall Street was sober with the broad market on its longest weekly losing streak in a year. The stock market has been slammed by jitters about slack corporate profits and concerns about the violence in the Middle East.

It’s just a bounceback, said Michael Vogelzang, president of Boston Advisors Inc., referring to Friday’s modest gains. It’s been a brutal couple of weeks.

International Business Machines Corp., one of the 30 stocks in the Dow average, rebounded after helping spark a selloff a day ago on fears of accounting problems at the world’s No. 1 computer maker. Investors, edgy after the collapse of energy trader Enron Corp., breathed a sigh of relief when the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said it had opened and shut a preliminary inquiry into IBM.

With the SEC saying they’ve concluded their investigation, it takes a little bit of a cloud off of the market, and I think that would help tech stocks, said John Forelli, portfolio manager at Independence Investment LLC.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 14.74 points, or 0.14 per cent, to 10,190.82, according to the latest figures. The Dow suffered its biggest percentage drop in nine weeks on Thursday. IBM rose $1.30 to $85.60 — off its high of the day of $87.50, but offering support to the Dow.

The tech-packed Nasdaq Composite Index rose 30.95 points, or 1.79 per cent, to 1,756.19, while the broad Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 7.32 points, or 0.66 per cent, to 1,111.01. The S&P 500 logged its fourth successive weekly decline, a drop unseen since the benchmark gauge tumbled eight weeks in a row over a period ended in late March 2001.

One bright spot was JetBlue Airways Corp., which surged 67 per cent, or $18, to end at $45 in its first day of trade on Nasdaq. The company, which offers air service to out-of-the-way or under-served markets like upstate New York, raised $158.4 million in an initial public offering.

The S&P airlines index jumped 4.93 per cent, and the S&P transport index climbed 3.39 per cent as investors hoped lower energy prices would help those sectors.

The market has been so beaten down on the negativity, and a little bit of positive news goes a long way right now, said Bill Yancey, manager of equity trading department at SWS Securities. There is still a lot of caution in the market.

Tensions are high ahead of a busy week for earnings reports and against the backdrop of more bloodshed in the Middle East. Questions about the speed of the US economic recovery were also on investors’ minds.

General Electric Co., the world’s most valuable company by stock market capitalization, fell 20 cents to $33.55 and was the most active share traded on the Big Board. GE slumped 9 per cent on Thursday after posting a rare drop in quarterly net income after charges for accounting changes.—Reuters