WALL STREET Three major indexes slump for the third straight week

There was some good news in the tech sector, but it went unnoticed.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors, shifting their focus from the economy to a possible second-half profit slump, sent technology and small-cap stocks sharply lower Friday, giving all three major indexes their third straight losing week. A jump in oil prices contributed to more moderate losses in other sectors.
While investors were cheered by a better-than-expected reading in the Labor Department's consumer price index, they are increasingly preoccupied with earnings, and so they feared that lower prices would translate into lower profits.
"This should be good news. It takes inflation off the table as a concern, at least for now," said Daniel Portanova, managing director of Gartmore Separate Accounts LLC. "But I think the bigger question now is the sustainability of the recovery and profits going forward."
Declines
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 23.38, or 0.2 percent, to 10,139.78, more than giving up a 75-point gain from earlier in the session.
Broader stock indicators were also lower. The Standard & amp; Poor's 500 index was down 5.30, or 0.5 percent, at 1,101.39, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 29.56, or 1.6 percent, to 1,883.15. It was the lowest close on the Nasdaq since May 17.
For the week, the Dow fell 0.7 percent, the S & amp;P dropped 1 percent and the Nasdaq plunged 3.3 percent. It was the third straight down week for the Nasdaq, the fourth for the Dow and the fifth for the S & amp;P 500.
Friday's session followed a now weekslong pattern, in which the market stagnated, or skidded lower, even though there was upbeat news.
The closely watched CPI is considered one of the best measures of consumer prices and inflation. The index rose just 0.3 percent in June -- half the previous month's rise. "Core" prices, excluding energy and food, rose just 0.1 percent.
Other concerns
That's good news for companies, since the Federal Reserve was expected to be less likely to aggressively raise benchmark interest rates, currently at 1.25 percent, while prices remain relatively steady. But investors had other concerns on their minds, such as Friday's spike in oil prices due to a terrorist attack on an Iraqi pipeline.
"First you have the political environment with the election, then you have the concern that profits will slow down significantly going into 2005, and finally, the geopolitical situation abroad is kind of lingering in the background," said Chris Wolfe, global head of equities for J.P. Morgan Private Bank. "We may have good earnings, but investors are discounting these other things instead."
Tech stocks
Investors' uneasy mood led them to look past good news in the battered tech sector, which saw numerous warnings and profit shortcomings in recent weeks.
IBM Corp. not only beat Wall Street expectations by 4 cents per share in the second quarter, but gave a strong positive outlook for the remainder of the year. Rival Dell Inc. also came out with a bullish outlook prior to its Aug. 12 earnings report. IBM climbed 26 cents to $84.28, while Dell rose 55 cents to $35.42.
Banking company KeyCorp was down 36 cents at $29.09 despite beating its second-quarter estimates by 2 cents per share. The company credited a rise investment and business banking and a decline in bad loans.