Dow Off 7 in Broad Market Retreat : Interest Rate Rise, Cool Reaction to Jobless Report Cited

NEW YORK —  The stock market posted a broad loss Monday, faced with rising interest rates and renewed uncertainties about stronger-than-expected economic statistics.

The Dow Jones index of 30 industrials dropped 7.46 to 1,980.60.

Declining issues outnumbered advances by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, with 458 up, 1,106 down and 407 unchanged.

Big Board volume totaled 182.24 million shares, against 139.87 million on Thursday. The NYSE’s composite index fell 1.43 to 145.17.

A big chunk of the activity stemmed from trading strategies in a few high-yielding stocks based on their impending dividend payments.

The Dow index would have shown a considerably wider loss but for the performance of one of its components--F. W. Woolworth, which jumped 8 7/8 to 54 1/8. The company said it had received notice that a group headed by Herbert Haft was seeking regulatory approval to buy up to 15% of its stock.

Otherwise, analysts said, stocks and bonds were giving a cool response to the Labor Department’s report that payroll employment continued to grow at an unexpectedly fast pace in March, expanding by 262,000.

The figures were issued Friday, when the markets were closed for the Easter and Passover holidays.

In the first bond market trading since then, interest rates rose today. Prices of long-term government bonds fell more than $10 for each $1,000 in face value, putting yields in the neighborhood of 8.9%.

Defensive Market

As for stocks, said Newton Zinder at Shearson Lehman Hutton, “We are dealing with a market that has been on the defensive for most of the past two weeks.”

Issues that were caught up in dividend-related trading included Bell South, down 1/2 at 38 on more than 31 million shares; Carolina Power & Light, down 1/8 at 33 7/8 on more than 17 million shares, and Delmarva Power & Light, up 1/8 at 17 7/8 on more than 5 million shares.

Losers among the blue chips included IBM, down 1/8 at 107 1/2; Exxon, down 3/4 at 41, and American Telephone & Telegraph, down 3/8 at 26 5/8.

Oxford First climbed 3 to 21. It said it was negotiating with the privately held CAWSL Corp. of Winnewood, Pa., on a possible sale at about $25 a share.

The Wilshire index of 5,000 equities closed at 2,558.790, down 25.163.

Nationwide turnover in NYSE-listed issues, including trades in those stocks on regional exchanges and in the over-the-counter market, totaled 209.23 million shares.

Standard & Poor’s index of 400 industrials fell 3.24 to 297.15, and S&P;’s 500-stock composite index was down 2.80 at 256.09.

The NASDAQ composite index dropped 2.75 to 371.89. At the American Stock Exchange, the market value index closed at 295.01, down 1.42.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225-share average, which gained 177.90 points during Saturday’s half a day of trading, Monday gained 53.17 to move to 26,335.29 at the end of the day’s trading. The market rose more than 130 Japanese yen but fell back shortly before the end of closing.

In London, Monday was a holiday, and the markets were closed.