Wall Street: Tuesday close

NEW anthrax scares stopped Wall Street's winning streak in its tracks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surrendered early gains to finish down 36.95 points or 0.4% to 9,340.08. The Nasdaq Index, which appeared headed for its fourth straight gain until mid-session, finished down 3.65 points or 0.2% at 1704.43.

Scott Curtis, head of US equity trading at Credit Lyonnais, said events outside Wall Street had helped spark the sell-off. 'Companies have been beating pretty poor expectations,' he said. 'But while people are focused on earnings, they also have one eye on the latest anthrax developments.'

The White House reported that its mail sorting centre had been closed after discovery of anthrax spores. It was also confirmed that two Washington DC postal workers had died from anthrax and that a New Jersey mail clerk had fallen ill with an inhalation strain of the bacterial disease.

Peter Coolidge, senior equity trader at investment firm Brean Murray, said investors were worried that bio-terrorism could hurt economic activity. 'There's a real lingering fear that as the anthrax issue widens it strikes not only at the physical well-being of people, but of the well-being of the economy,' he added.

Earnings reports and company specific news played a big part in the choppy trading. Diageo's US shares fell $1 or 2.5% to $38.20. The Federal Trade Commission voted to seek a court injunction to block the proposed $8bn (£5.7bn) purchase of Seagram's drinks business by a joint venture between Diageo and France's Pernod Ricard.

Internet retailer Amazon.com rose 78 cents or 8.9% to $9.55 before its quarterly report was released, but traded at $9.01 in after-hours trading. The company said it lost $70m in the latest quarter on sales that fell below Wall Street expectations

Financials, which led the early rally, lost much of their gains. JP Morgan Chase finished ahead 45 cents or 1.3% to $35.76. Citigroup held on to a gain of 23 cents or 0.5% to $47.24.

ExxonMobil, the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, dipped 25 cents or 0.6% to $40.87 after reporting its latest quarterly profit dropped 29% to $3.2bn.

Compaq, the big computer maker, said it did not see an immediate rebound in demand. Its shares were down 25 cents or 2.6% to $9.40 in regular trading and fell another 4.2% in extended hours.

Lucent the biggest equipment provider to the telecoms industry, traded down 26 cents or 3.8% to $6.64 as it booked an $8.8bn loss for the quarter.

Echostar, the satellite TV company battling News Corp. to buy bigger rival DirecTV, was steady at $26.07 as it reported a surprising $3.1m profit.

Monsanto, the bio-engineered crops company, tumbled $4.23 or 11.5% to $32.56 as it fell short of Wall Street expectations and warned sales growth could drop to 2% in the quarters ahead.

Internet travel company Expedia jumped $2.60 or 8.9% to $31.83 as its profits topped estimates.

Telecom AT&T shed 60 cents or 3.3% to $17.70 but traded slightly higher in after-hours as its quarterly results met expectations.

SBC, which on Monday said it was cutting several thousand jobs, fell another $2.62 or 6.3% to $38.78. America's second biggest local telephone company has lost roughly $17bn in market value over the past two days.