"THE DOW JONES Industrial Average bypassed its high within minutes of the market open, then again near the close, but trimmed its gains to finish shy of the record.</br></br>The indicator, which tracks 30 blue-chip companies, posted an intraday high of 11728.46, up 5.48 points from its January 2000 peak. But on the day, the Dow industrials finished up 29.21 points, or 0.29%, at 11718.45, up 9.3% on the year.</br></br>Among the Dow average's strongest components were Caterpillar and General Motors. GM rose after Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda, which owns 9.9% of GM's shares outstanding, said it was considering purchasing as many as 12 million more shares of the auto maker. Tracinda also said it supports an alliance between GM and Renault-Nissan.</br></br>However, the three names with the biggest influence weightings in the price-weighted Dow industrial average -- International Business Machines, Altria Group and Boeing -- all finished the day off less than 0.5%. Even modest gains at one or two of those companies would have sent the Dow industrial average over its record, which now stands just 4.53 points away, at 11722.98.</br></br>""The Dow is teasing everybody right now,"" said Kenneth Tower, chief market strategist at the online-brokerage firm CyberTrader."