'You've got a buyers' strike'
But UPS bucks trend, gains 8%
Russell Grantham - Staff
Saturday, July 20, 2002
The stock market rattled investors' confidence again Friday with a teeth-clenching plunge more than 200 points below its previous post-Sept. 11 low.
''There is just no good news out there right now, and people are not willing to get involved in the market going into a weekend,'' said Bryan Piskorowski, a market commentator at Prudential Securities. ''You've got a buyers' strike going on.''
Indeed, some local investors felt they had little choice but to stay on the sidelines.
"What we're hearing most frequently is 'I wish I had money to put into the market,' " said R. Steven Crowley, manager of the Charles Schwab & Co.'s downtown Atlanta branch.
The half-dozen clients in his office at lunchtime probably didn't do much buying or selling, he said.
Shortly before the stock markets closed Friday, Crowley's office was as quiet as a church on Monday morning.
The fall began with news that Johnson & Johnson was the subject of a government investigation, and didn't end until after the widely followed market index dipped for a time below the psychologically significant 8,000 mark.
The Dow closed down 390.23, or 4.6 percent, at 8,019.26 after being down as much as 442 points in the final minutes of the session. The finish put the average 216 points beneath the Sept. 21 close following the terrorist attacks and at levels last seen in October 1998.
For the week, the Dow lost 7.7 percent, the Nasdaq fell nearly 4 percent and the S&P 500 dropped almost 8 percent.
Stocks of Georgia companies generally suffered along with the rest of the market Friday, with a notable exception.
United Parcel Service jumped $4.95, or 8 percent, to a closing price of $67, a 52-week high.
Earlier this week, negotiators for the delivery company and the Teamsters union reached agreement on a six-year contract. A ratification vote is expected later this summer.
On the downside, BellSouth hit a 52-week low of $27.50 before closing at $27.61, down $1.57.
All told, 106 Georgia stocks in an index compiled by Bloomberg News lost ground Friday. There were 38 gainers among state stocks, and 43 that were unchanged in the index.
Despite Friday's continued fall, Hank Dotson of Sandy Springs said he's hanging on.
The 68-year-old retired sales manager for Consolidated Electric said he has been buying more conservative investments over the past three years such as bonds and preferred stocks but hasn't been selling earlier stock investments.
"My wife and I both feel like if you don't sell, you've got nothing but a paper loss," he said.
Ronnie Barnes, 48, said he didn't buy or sell Friday.
But he hopes to buy shares of Level 3 Communications within a week, after seeing news that billionaire investor Warren Buffett and others agreed to invest in the telecommunications company.
"I'm a long-term investor," said Barnes, a toolmaker for Versamount in Douglasville. Friday's decline of nearly 400 points "is telling me to buy more stock," he said.
