Stock Market

Simon Says:It seems like the perfect time for an old joke:Q: How do you make a small fortune on the stock market?A: Start with a large fortune.I hear the Postal Service is considering a new deal to help repair its damaged reputation: If your letter does not get to its destination within 90 days, you get the stamp for free!*It may be a bad sign if you own more pairs of running shoes than books.*I think Whitewater is one heck of a good story, but has anyone noticed that we're getting close to war with North Korea?

NEW YORK -- Stocks closed little changed yesterday amid concern that today's consumer price report might reveal a resurgence of inflation. Declines in drug and other health care stocks outweighed strength in oil and utility issues."

Fully valued. That's how many Wall Street investment strategists are labeling the stock market lately.It dodged a bullet when the North American Free Trade Agreement was approved by Congress. Even though positive economic aspects won't be immediate and there will be some negative impact, a dramatic market drop was expected had NAFTA failed to pass.Still, there remain plenty of other worries on the agenda.The high-flying market has already factored in prospects for an improved 1994 economy.

NEW YORK -- Market drops test an investor's resolve. Are you really in stocks for the long term, or do TV's breathless reports on a price plunge scare you away?It's hard not to be scared, when you're unused to sudden price drops of 10 percent. Generally speaking, blue chip stocks haven't seesawed much in recent years -- they've just cheerfully gone up.Historically, however, drops are as common as crows, according to Ned Davis Research. Going back to 1900, the market has fallen 10 percent (or a bit more)

MY SON HAD a scarring experience with the stock market while still an impressionable boy. Like a kid who falls off his bike, he is refusing to get back on again. While in high school, he was given a couple of hundred dollars for attending a summer college seminar, and I talked him into depositing it in a mutual fund account. I set up an online chart to help him track the progress of his modest investment. He decided that getting paid for going to class was the perfect setup, and he managed to gain admission to a military academy where that is, more or less, the deal.

MOSCOW -- Would-be investment bankers, stockbrokers and traders of the Soviet Union got a rare chance this week to grill American experts representing the New York Stock Exchange about everything from savings bonds to insider trading.The opening day of a Soviet stock market is at least several months away. But Soviet financiers invited the New York Stock Exchange, that bastion of capitalism, to tell them all they could about buying low and selling high."We're starved for information about financial markets," Alla Y. Seliverstov, a lecturer at Moscow Commercial Institute, said after a session on the public debt market.

NEW YORK -- Stock prices made a feverish but failed effort yesterday to extend Wednesday's 32-point gain.The Dow Jones industrial average spent most of the day in plus territory and was up more than 20 points for a while. But the enthusiasm wore off in the last hour, and the index finished down 2.97 at 2952.23.Analysts attributed the late weakness to activity by computer program traders engaged in multiple transactions heading into today's "triple witching hour," which involves the simultaneous expiration of stock index options and futures.

SHANGHAI, China -- Every few weeks for a year now, Li Shangjing has gathered up his nerve and wandered into the offices of a large brokerage firm to see how much further the stock market has fallen -- and how much more of his life savings has disappeared.And even now, looking at a glowing video monitor that charted this week's phenomenal recovery on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Mr. Li could barely manage a smile."What I have learned is that stocks are like gambling," said Mr. Li, 34, an office clerk who earns $100 a month and has lost most of his savings in China's newly revived stock market.

With the Dow Jones average this morning at 1,257.45 points, 13.46 percent below its peak -- and Wall Street's disappointment with the Federal Reserve's slim interest-rate cut -- how do you protect yourself against a further stock market decline?"

Building on Friday's 49-point rally, stocks moved higher again yesterday as the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 23.88 points to close at 3,932.34. At that level, the Dow stands 385 points, or 10.7 percent, above its 12-month low (3,593.35) and only 46 points, or 1.1 percent, below its all-time high (3,978.36.)MIDWINTER CHEER: "If history holds, this should be a good year for the stock market. Here are annual percentage gains in the S& P 500-stock index during the year before a president faces re-election: 1955: 26 percent . . . 1963: 19 . . . 1967: 20 . . . 1971: 11 . . . 1979: 12 . . . 1983: 17 . . . 1991: 26."