MARKET CLOSE: Hurricane Floyd puts damper on Wall Street

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 64 points to 10,737.46 while the Nasdaq trimmed 8 points to finish at 2,806.58 Thursday. Hurricane Floyd curtailed the normal flow of trading activity as many traders left work early.

Technology stocks endured a bumpy ride as the Nasdaq fell more than 58 points at one point before rallying back into positive territory ahead of some late selling.

"There's no question that Floyd is responsible for a lot of what we saw today," said Alfred Goldman, technical analyst at A.G. Edwards. "Nobody wants to be brave on a day like this."

COMSAT Corp. (CQ) shares roared up 7 ?, or 27 percent, to 35 after Justice Department cleared its merger with Lockheed Martin Corp. Lockheed (LMT) shares closed off 1 5/16 to 33 11/16.

NetSpeak Corp. (NSPK) shaved off 1/4 to 12 1/16 after saying it would cut back the scope of its alliance with Motorola Inc. in exchange for greater freedom to market its products to other suppliers. Motorola Inc. (MOT) moved up 7/8 to 87 1/2 and Bell Atlantic (BEL) rose 7/8 to end at 64.

AT&T Corp. (T) tacked on 15/16 to 45 7/16 after announcing news the company has reached a deal with British Telecom (BTY) to combine their cellular operations and provide global wireless phone coverage. British Telecom closed up 5 1/4 to 153.

Among widely held PC stocks, Dell Computer Corp. (DELL) inched up 1/16 to 46 3/4; Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ) added 3/8 to 23 15/16; Gateway Inc. (GTW) lost 7/16 to 46 7/8 and Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) moved up 1 7/16 to 76 13/16.

Tektronix, Inc. (TEK) dropped 9/16 to 33 7/16 after it posted earnings of $9.5 million, or 20 cents a share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2000, a solid three cents above First Call's consensus estimate.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) picked up 1 1/16 to 163 7/16 while Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and America Online Inc. (AOL) lost 9/16 and 1 5/16 a share, respectively. Lycos Inc. (LCOS) fell 3/4 to 43 and Infoseek Corp. (SEEK) dipped 1 to 29 5/8. eBay Inc. (EBAY) closed off 1/4 to 151 3/4.

Inktomi Corp. (INKT) lost 25/32 to 128 5/8 after announcing it had inked a deal to buy WebSpective Software, a provider of content distribution and tracking software, for about $106 million.

Intel Corp. (INTC) fell 3/8 to 82 5/8 and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) slid 1 15/16 to 130.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) managed to gain 1 1/8 to 93 3/4 and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) finished off 1/2 to 42 3/16.