WALL Street stocks managed sling gains yesterday after briefly turning lower. Trading was extremely quiet, with little news to steer the market after Tuesday's slide.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 19.60 points, rising to 5,666.88 and erasing an early afternoon deficit of 17 points.

Broad market indexes were modestly higher, with the technology heavy NASDAQ market showing the biggest gain, up 7.36 to 1,133.51.

In an economic report monitored closely for clues about possible interest rate moves by the US Federal Reserve, the US Labour Department reported that work place productivity fell at an annual rate of 0.1 per cent in the second quarter.

Analysts, who had expected a larger 0.5 per cent fall during the April June quarter, fear that the tight labour market could lead to increased wages that would be passed on to consumers as higher prices.