Dow Edges Up 9.25 on Dollar’s Strength : Volume Slackens as Traders Await Data on U.S. Trade Deficit

NEW YORK — The stock market seemed to ignore a rise in the prime lending rate charged by major banks and closed higher Thursday, supported by a stronger dollar and buoyed by light program buying.

The Dow Jones index of 30 industrials rose 9.25 to 2,113.62.

Advancing issues outnumbered declines by about 6 to 5 in nationwide trading of New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks.

Volume on the floor of the Big Board came to 172.41 million shares, against 218.93 million in the previous session.

Analysts said the market shrugged off the prime rate’s increase to 9.5% from 9% by major U.S. banks because the rise had been widely anticipated as underlying interest rates rose.

Analysts also said that the day’s upward move in the Dow was not a particularly good indicator of the market’s future direction because many investors were waiting on the sidelines for today’s release of the latest U.S. trade deficit data.

Reason for Lethargy

Economists were predicting a rise in the deficit to about $11.5 billion for May from April’s $9.89 billion.

Analysts said investors were also waiting for June producer price index and the June industrial trade production data. In addition, International Business Machines Corp. is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings today.

“I think there is an unwillingness in people to make heavy bets before the information is announced, and hence the lethargy today,” said Phil Rattew, senior market analyst at Merrill Lynch. “If there were to be any disappointing news, the Dow may go down to 2,000 or 2,050, and if it’s better than we expected we may already have seen the bottom.”

Mark Tavel, president of Valueline Asset Management Corp., said: “The program trades have been the dominating force moving the market one direction or the other, but a number of stocks have responded to strong earnings reports.”

“All these figures constitute potentially loose cannons and give a reason to stay out of the way,” Tavel said.

Bob Colby, an analyst at Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., said he believed that the short-term trend for stock prices is down, regardless of the oncoming indicators. “The 2,085 level is the significant number on the downside. If the Dow goes below that, it might force more selling.”

Gains Reported

Motorola fell 1 5/8 to 50 5/8. The company reported second-quarter earnings of 93 cents a share, up from 62 cents in the comparable period last year but below what some Wall Streeters had been looking for.

Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel rose 2 to 20 7/8. On Wednesday the company reported sharply higher earnings for the second quarter.

Millipore climbed 1 3/8 to 38 5/8, and Worthington Industries, traded in the over-the-counter market, gained 1 1/8 to 24 3/8. The two stocks were added to Standard & Poor’s 500-stock composite index, prompting buying by index funds set up to duplicate the performance of the 500.

The Wilshire index of 5,000 equities closed at 2,704.502, up 7.637.

The NYSE’s composite index of all its listed common stocks added 0.49 to 152.76.

Standard & Poor’s industrial index rose 1.05 to 312.17, and S&P;’s 500-stock composite index was up 0.94 at 270.26.

The NASDAQ composite index gained 1.11 to 394.67. The American Stock Exchange index closed at 308.14, up 0.48.

On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Nikkei 225-share index gained 63.98 to close at 28,084.08.

Stocks rose in light trading on London’s Stock Exchange Wednesday, with the Financial Times 100-share index ended up 12.8 at 1,871.3.