Stock Market Tease

The stock market last week put on a maddeningly teasing performance: the Dow Jones industrial average cracked the 1,000 mark not once but five times, and each time it fell back. On Thursday the 30-stock index even managed to close at 1,003.31, its first close above 1,000 in more than three years. But on Friday profit taking in U.S. Steel and Bethlehem and worries about a possible rise in interest rates beat the Dow down to 987.64.

Some analysts nonetheless believe the Dow will speedily go on to break its all-time high of 1,051.70, perhaps in the next few weeks. Says Robert H. Stovall, vice president of Reynolds Securities: "The next 50 points will be easy." He and others think the fact that the Dow has closed above 1,000 even once will topple the "psychological barrier" in investors' minds, and publicity about the event will lure many small individual buyers. On the other hand, many investors have picked 1,000 as an arbitrary point at which to sell and cash in their gains.

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