A sharp, last-minute rally partly fuelled by bank shares pulled the New York stock market out of a deep slump yesterday, slashing sharp losses to nearly nothing in the final 30 minutes of trading. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 7.21 points at 9,537.76. The blue-chip index was off nearly 120 points in early afternoon.

The market opened lower and stayed lower all day, as investors sold shares to extract profits from a sparkling three-day rally that took major indexes to record levels.

The Standard and Poor's 500 fell 3.19 to 1,269.15, but the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 5.24 to 2,326.10. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a three-to-two margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,137 up, 1,956 down and 479 unchanged.