Dow down 29
on tech worry

NEW YORK - Stocks fell modestly today as an early rally faltered and the battered technology group struggled with worries about disk-drive demand and a flaw in Intel's Pentium chips.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 28.73 to close at 7,552.59, after surrendering an opening 75-point gain. It was the third straight losing session for the Dow, which lost 102 points on Friday after a sharp selloff in Japan rattled financial markets around the world.

Advancers outnumbered decliners by a narrow margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,455 up, 1,431 down and 540 unchanged.

NYSE volume totaled 463.42 million shares vs. 564.10 million yesterday.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock list fell 6.38 to 921.13, the NYSE composite index fell 2.42 to 484.87, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 11.68 to 1,590.72.

But the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 0.18 to 435.40, and the American Stock Exchange composite index was up 2.20 to 680.47.

The broader stock measures turned lower despite some scattered demand for smaller companies that have less exposure to the economic turmoil overseas.

Leading the technology slump was the disk-drive group, which suffered some brokerage downgrades in the aftermath of Friday's profit warning from Western Digital.

The selling intensified after Intel announced that it was working to fix a bug in its popular Pentium microprocessors.