Wall Street stocks fell sharply yesterday as Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan dampened investor optimism with another warning about inflationary pressures in the US and market exuberance.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 83.25 points to 8,095.06 after recovering from a 127-point setback.
Greenspan warned that the current economic good times could be cut short if inflationary pressures emerge and said it may be only a matter of time until the strong US job market forces employers to boost wages and prices.
Declines outnumbered advances by nearly 2-to-1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,004 up, 1,942 down and 476 unchanged.
NYSE volume totalled 572.29 million shares, against 551.41 million in the previous session.
The Standard and Poor's 500stock list fell 9.28 to 973.84, and the NYSE composite index fell 4.64 to 509.57. The Nasdaq composite index rose 4.50 to 1,741.77.
