Sorting the Day’s Winners, Losers

Tuesday’s brutal market plunge, then recovery, left the stock market broadly lower by the close--but with some noteworthy losers, and winners, in the mix.

The Nasdaq composite, off 574 points, or 13.6%, at its worst point Tuesday, ended down 74.79 points, or 1.8%, at 4,148.89.

The Dow industrials fell 57.09 points, or 0.5%, to 11,164.84, after diving 504 points by midday.

As losers swamped winners by 32 to 11 on Nasdaq and by 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, the Russell 2,000 index gave up 1.9%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.8%, and the S&P; mid-cap index fell 1.8%.

A look at some of the individual sector losers and winners:

* Loser: Brokerage stocks. Concern that the continuing sharp decline in the Nasdaq market might end the bull market for good pulled brokerage stocks sharply lower.

Merrill Lynch dived $7.88 to $99.25, Charles Schwab fell $6.94 to $50, and PaineWebber sank $3.50 to $40.50.

“The brokerage firms typically get hurt when there’s a major break like this because it’s usually followed by a period of reduced activity,” said Jon Burnham, manager of the $225-million Burnham Fund. “People get scared, and these day traders must be getting killed.”

Mutual fund company stocks also slumped, including T. Rowe Price, down $1.31 to $37.13.

* Loser: Internet-company incubators. Internet stocks in general have been hammered for weeks. That continued early Tuesday: The Interactive Week Net stock index was down as much as 16% before rebounding to end up 0.3%.

But companies that invest in and incubate Net stocks failed to recover much. CMGI dived $11 to $89, and Acacia Research collapsed $14.13 to $22.25.

* Loser: Biotech stocks. The hottest stocks of the first quarter had been biotech names--before they began to plunge in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, sellers struck again. Genentech dived $5.38 to $138.75, Imclone Systems fell $3.06 to $73.94, and Affymetrix skidded $13 to $125.50.

* Loser: Tech companies that had the bad timing to warn of lower earnings. Unisys fell $2.19 to $23.25 after the computer-services company said first-quarter revenue will lag forecasts because business hasn’t picked up after a year 2000 slowdown.

BindView Development plunged $16.69 to $8.88 after the maker of software to secure computer networks said it expects to report a loss from operations of 2 cents to 4 cents a share, missing the consensus estimate of break-even results from eight analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.

* Loser: Foreign markets. Latin American and Canadian stocks fell even harder than the U.S. market. Toronto’s main index fell 2.8%. The Mexican market slid 2.5%, and the Brazilian market tumbled 2.8%.

* Loser: Mid-day short sellers in big tech names. Traders who sell stocks short--that is, sell borrowed stock, hoping to buy it back cheaper later--made good money Tuesday if they closed out their bets before the rebound began at midday.

But anyone who shorted Cisco Systems at its low of $64 on Tuesday watched it rise to $73.13 in the rebound.

* Winner: “Old-economy” consumer stocks. Beaten-down Procter & Gamble gained $4 to $63.50 after analyst Alice Beebe Longley at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Securities raised the biggest U.S. maker of household goods to “buy” from “market perform.” The stock had dropped more than 30% on March 7 after the company said third-quarter profit will fall.

Also, Coca-Cola shot up $3.06 to $52.38. The company said beverage sales will rise at least 5% this year, after eking out a 1% gain in 1999, as new juices and other non-carbonated drinks are introduced and as foreign economies rebound.

Drug stocks also were winners.

* Winner: Gold and gold stocks. Finally, some investors found a reason to buy gold again: a stock market mini-panic. Near-term futures in New York rose $6.30 to $283.90 an ounce.

Among gold stocks, Barrick gained 94 cents to $16.94, and Newmont Mining rose $1.06 to $23.50.

* Winner: Treasury securities. The “flight to safety” that has been helping push Treasury yields lower turned into a stampede Tuesday.

The two-year T-note fell to 6.30% from 6.41% on Monday. The 30-year T-bond slid to 5.77% from 5.81%.

There is “reallocation going on away from technology issues into safer investments,” said Mark MacQueen, who invests $750 million at Sage Advisory Services in Austin, Texas.

* Winner: Electric utilities. Suddenly, dividend income might matter again. Duke Energy jumped $2.25 to $56.25, American Electric Power rose $1 to $30.81, and Consolidated Edison gained $1.19 to $30.19.

* Winner: Major tech stocks. When buyers returned to tech Tuesday afternoon, they wanted quality. Intel gained $2.13 to $132.75 after falling to $119. Dell rose 94 cents to $54.31 after hitting $48.

Market Roundup, C9

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Record Volume

Nasdaq share volume on Tuesday totaled nearly 2.9 billion shares, exceeding the previous record by nearly 30%. The 10 busiest Nasdaq days ever, all of which occurred this year (billions of shares traded):

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Tuesday: 2.888

3/01: 2.232

3/07: 2.144

3/02: 2.137

3/03: 2.136

3/31: 2.111

2/29: 2.088

3/16: 2.041

3/06: 2.015

2/17: 2.008

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Source: Nasdaq