Wall St: Tuesday mid-session
STOCKS sagged as investors took a break from buying after Monday's big rally, which pushed the blue-chip Dow and technology-heavy Nasdaq to their highest levels in more than two and a half years.
Weakness in semiconductor stocks dragged down the Nasdaq after Novellus Systems forecast earnings at the lower end of analyst estimates.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 55.03 points, or 0.51% at 10,647.48 and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 26.44 points, or 1.23% to 2,127.39.
In economic news, the Conference Board, a private research group, said its monthly index of consumer confidence jumped to 96.8 in January from a revised 91.7 in December, above Wall Street's forecast of a 96.3 reading.
But the number of people saying jobs were hard to find was higher than a year ago.
On the Nasdaq, Novellus, a maker of microchip-making equipment, fell sharply after it warned that business conditions in the current quarter could weaken. Novellus shares dropped $4.94, or 12.3% to $35.31.
SBC Communications, the second-biggest US local phone company, weighed on the Dow after reporting its fourth-quarter earnings dropped 62% amid shrinking sales of phone access lines and one-time charges. SBC shares fell 75 cents, or 2.8% to $25.94.
Defence contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon also fell sharply after both reported disappointing earnings and gave dampened forecasts for 2004 due to large pension costs.
Lockheed shares fell 2.9 percent to $50.09, while those of Raytheon gave up 2.2 percent to $31.51.
The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting on interest rates today and will issue a policy statement at the end of the meeting on Wednesday.
Wall Street widely expects the Fed to keep interest rate targets unchanged and reiterate recent statements that it does not plan to boost rates 'for a considerable period'.
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