Nasdaq stocks swooned Tuesday, led by a collapse in the red-hot biotech sector.
The Nasdaq composite index suffered its second-biggest point decline ever, losing 200.61 points, or 4.1 percent, to 4706.63. It was another wild day of trading on the Nasdaq stock market, with the market’s index rallying to above 5013 near the start of trading, and then making a U-turn, for a 306-point swing.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 135.89, or 1.4 percent, to 9811.24, on New York Stock Exchange volume of 1.09 billion shares.
President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reiterated their position that elemental data from the government-funded Human Genome Project should be available to the public in a timely manner.
They also restated the importance of patent protection as a necessary inducement for genomic research.
White House officials and the Biotechnology Industry Organization played down the significance of the comments, but investors feared new restrictions on commercial application of gene mapping. Biotech investors were rattled earlier in the week by a disappointing report on clinical trials by one of the sector’s stalwarts, Chiron.
The biotech stock index at the American Stock Exchange fell 13.2 percent Tuesday and stands more than 30 percent below its peak just a week ago.
After the close of Nasdaq trading, business software developer Oracle posted much better than expected results for its third fiscal quarter. Its stock climbed in after-hours trading.
