NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks fell yesterday, as the Dow Jones industrial average retreated from its first 10,000-plus close after Coca-Cola Co., the world's biggest beverage maker, warned of unexpectedly weak sales.
Computer-related shares limited losses. America Online Inc. soared after announcing an Internet commerce alliance with Sun Microsystems Inc., and investors said they were relieved that neither Compaq Computer Corp. nor Intel Corp. have warned of disappointing earnings.
The Dow average lost 93.52, to 9,913.26. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 9.42, to 1,300.75, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 12.55, to 2,480.29.
Elsewhere on the broad market, the Russell 2,000 index, a benchmark of small-cap stocks, slid 0.98, to 398.78; the Wilshire 5,000 index fell 90.36, to 11,803.03; the American Stock Exchange composite index skidded 6.25, to 711.63; and the S&P; 400 midcap index lost 5.43, to 364.57.
The Sun-Bloomberg Maryland index of the top 100 Maryland stocks fell 1.31, to 180.17.
Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where trading volume was 729 million shares.
Coca-Cola fell $3.875, to $63.3125, on the NYSE, contributing most to the Dow's decline. Coke said case sales would fall for a second quarter because of weakness in Germany, Japan, South Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and parts of Eastern Europe. Coke gets three-quarters of its profit from foreign markets. Its forecast for the United States, its biggest market, also was less than expected.
PepsiCo Inc., Coke's rival, fell 81.25 cents, to $39.875.
Concern about slowing sales also drove Gillette Co. down $3.25, to $60.375.
Philip Morris Cos., one of the 30 Dow stocks, plunged $3.5625, to $37.625, after the world's largest tobacco company was ordered by an Oregon jury to pay $81 million in damages to the family of a longtime Marlboro smoker who died of cancer.
AOL rose $12.125, to $144.50, and Sun Microsystems climbed $1.4375, to $125.9375, after they said they will develop software that lets companies sell products on the Internet, tapping the growing market for electronic commerce. The alliance hopes to target the mushrooming number of online retailers, with the first products expected to ship in the first quarter of 2000.
Amazon.com Inc. jumped $15.0625, to $164.6875, as optimism about the company's online auction business, coupled with a rising number of online users, relieved concerns about whether the retailer would show "sequential growth in the first quarter," said analyst Lauren Cooks Levitan at BancBoston Robertson Stephens Inc.
Priceline.com Inc., which runs an Internet site where consumers bid for airline tickets and hotel rooms, soared $53, to $69, in its first day of trading.
Among high-profile technology stocks, Dell Computer Corp. rose 43.75 cents, to $39.875; Compaq added 93.75 cents, to $32.4375; and Intel was unchanged at $121.5625.
Microsoft Corp. rose 62.5 cents, to $93, on word of planned late-day settlement talks among lawyers for the No. 1 software company, the Justice Department and the 19 states involved in an antitrust suit against the company.
US Airways Group Inc. rose $3.3125, to $49.8125, after the sixth-largest U.S. airline said it will buy back $500 million in stock, leading airline shares higher. AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, rose $3.25, to $59.875; Delta Air Lines Inc. added $2, to $71; UAL Corp., the parent of United Airlines, gained $2.25, to $79.375; and Southwest Airlines climbed $1.375, to $31.375.
Iridium World Communications Inc. fell $3.1875, to $16.75, a 52-week low. The company, which runs the first satellite-based, global telephone network, was downgraded to near-term "neutral" from near-term "accumulate" by analyst Thomas W. Watts at Merrill Lynch & Co.
Harris Corp. fell $2.125, to $29.5625. The maker of electronic products said it expects earnings of 50 cents to 54 cents a share for the fiscal third quarter that ends Friday, more than a nickel less than analysts predicted.
Huffy Corp. fell $1.875, to $13.4375, after the bicycle maker said first-quarter earnings will fall to 8 cents to 12 cents a share, before charges, from 30 cents a share last year.
Pub Date: 3/31/99