A strong profit report from IBM gave investors the signal to buy technology stocks again yesterday, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average to yet another new high. The Dow is now up nearly 17 per cent for the year. Broader stock indicators also moved higher as Monday's fierce sell-off in technology shares became a distant memory. The Nasdaq composite index rose 72.63 to 2,561.71. The Standard and Poor's 500 index was up 22.70 at 1,358.82, just eclipsing its own previous closing high of 1,358.63.

IBM's results reassured investors who have been nervously shuttling between technology issues and more conservative blue-chip issues.

Bond prices fell, but Wall Street for once did not follow - an apparent return to the classic market tenet that a growing economy is good for the stock market although it pushes interest rates higher and bond prices down. Technology shares led the broad advance with Dell and

Intel higher and in the telecommunications sector, Lucent Technologies rose on better-than-expected earnings. But GTE and Bell Atlantic fell.