Wall Street report: Friday close

WALL Street slumped to its worst back to back week performance since September as big techs lost more of their post-attack gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had a topsy-turvy week, fell 78.19 points or 0.79% to 9,771.85. The Dow, down 2.2% on the week, has fallen in eight of the last 10 sessions. The Nasdaq Index, down 2.8% on Wednesday and up 2.1% on Thursday, shed 55.48 points or 2.79% to 1,930.34. The Nasdaq, off 4.6% for the week, suffered its biggest weekly drop since the terror attacks.

Sentiment has been see-sawing with the release of quarterly company earnings reports. Intel's gloomy outlook knocked shares on Wednesday, General Electric and Citigroup lifted spirits on Wednesday and IBM and Microsoft sent investors into a selling mood with their comments after the close of the market on Thursday night.

IBM, which came in $1b. light on anticipated revenues, tumbled $5.65 or 4.7% to $114.25. Microsoft, which tipped tougher times ahead, shed $3.76 or 5.4% to $66.10.

'I think the market is a Doubting Thomas right now,' said Bill Schneider of UBS Warburg. 'It has a 'show-me attitude, show me the earnings' .. and that's just not there yet.'

Even Dell Computer, which issued a statement saying that it would beat forecasts, won little favor with investors. Dell shares slipped 85 cents or 2.9% to $28.10.

Sun Microsystems did not help sentiment when it came out with a report showing sales plummeting 39% in the latest quarter. Its shares came off 25 cents or 2% to $12.12.

Nortel Networks, which makes equipment for the telecom sector, was marked down 24 cents or 3.1% to $7.50 as it again cut its already much reduced sales outlook.

Intel, which had led the sharp run up from September lows, gave up another $1.05 or 3% to $33.48. General Electric traded down fractionally at $38.68 and Citigroup was marginally higher to $49.96.

Scotch tape maker 3M added $2.28 or 2.2% to $106.80 after it reported a 17% profit jump and said it was cutting another 2,500 jobs. MTV owner Viacom shed $1.36 cents or 3.2% to $40.70 on continued worries that it might face asbestos liability through its ownership of Westinghouse, a manufacturer of appliances and power generating equipment.

JP Morgan Chase, which earlier in the week wrote off some of its bad loans to Argentina and Enron, lost 94 cents or 2.6% to $35.91.

Bio tech company ImClone Systems plunged $8.93 or 30% to $21.15 after Congress said it would launch an investigation into testing of a much-heralded cancer drug which has been blocked by the Food and Drug Administration.