Dow Plunges a Record 45 After 3-Week Rise of 125 : Investors Cash In on Profits

NEW YORK —  Wall Street stocks today plummeted by a record 45.75 points as investors decided to cash in their profits following a gain of about 125 points over the last three weeks.

The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials, following the glide path of a brick, tumbled to 1840.15. Declines swamped advances with more than 1,400 major stocks heading lower and only about 200 up for the day.

New York Stock Exchange volume was about 123.33 million shares compared with 110.91 million shares Friday.

The relatively light volume indicated that institutions weren’t the big sellers in today’s retreat.

The Dow’s previous record drop was 41.91 points set last April 30.

Last Friday, the Dow Jones average of 30 blue chip stocks closed at a record high, up 6.46 at 1,882.35.

Losers outnumbered gainers by nearly 6 to 1 among New York Stock Exchange-listed issues.

Analysts said there was nothing special in the news today to prompt selling of stocks. But they said many investors were less than impressed by the recent behavior of the market, which put the Dow at new highs but left some other closely watched indicators below their previous peaks.

The Dow Jones transportation average, for one, posted a large loss on Friday and is well short of record levels.

Under a longstanding doctrine known as the Dow theory, advances to new highs by the industrial average should be “confirmed” by similar gains in the transportation average to signal that the market is in healthy shape.

Concern over such things touched off selling in stock-index futures, which quickly spilled over into the stock market itself.