Since Sept. 11, the Standard & Poor's utility index has declined by 11.2 percent.

The utility index fell 9.87, to 197.25.

And until two or three months ago, the electric utility index had acted pretty much in tandem with the bond market.

The Dow Jones transportation index reached a high for the year, gaining 18.43 points, and the utility index rose 3.71 points.

Economist: I suggest that you attach a utility index to each alternative, and choose the alternative with the highest utility.

Any two triplets obeying these relationships must be related by a linear transformation; they represent utility indices differing only by scale and origin.

The magnitude of the marginal utility is not the same for all cardinal utility indices representing the same specific preference structure.

But some indexes that track particular sectors were up: The utility index gained 2.02, to 183.56, as investors sought relative safety in high-yielding stocks.

On the 100-company electric utility index of Salomon Brothers, the yield yesterday was 7.29 percent.

Utilities have been especially strong - the Standard & Poor's utility index is up 44.5 percent this year, and financial stocks have also held their own.