Opinion of the Court Notwithstanding the array of authority contrary to Lessig, the Court of Appeals in this case reaffirmed its prior holdings; indeed, it did not mention either this Court's decisions discussed above or the many decisions of other Courts of Appeals reaching contrary results. Respondents urge us to affirm the decision below. We are not at all inclined, however, to embrace Lessig's interpretation of §2, for there is little, if any, support for it in the statute or the case law, and the notion that proof of unfair or predatory conduct alone is sufficient to make out the offense of attempted monopolization is contrary to the purpose and policy of the Sherman Act. The Lessig opinion claimed support from the language of § 2, which prohibits attempts to monopolize "any part" of commerce, and therefore forbids attempts to monopolize any appreciable segment of interstate sales of the relevant product. See United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U. S. 218, 226 (1947). The "any part" clause, however, applies to charges of monopolization as well as to attempts to monopolize, and it is beyond doubt that the former requires proof of market power in a relevant market. United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U. S. 563, 570-571 (1966); United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 351 U. S. 377, 404 (1956).9 In support of its determination that an inference of dangerous probability was permissible from a showing of intent, the Lessig opinion cited, and added emphasis to, this Court's reference in its opinion in Swift to "intent and the consequent dangerous probability."" 327 F. 2d, at 474, n. 46, quoting 196 U. S., at 396. But any question whether dangerous 9 Lessig cited United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U. S., at 226, in support of its interpretation, but Yellow Cab relied on the "any part" language to support the proposition that it is immaterial how large an amount of interstate trade is affected, or how important that part of commerce is in relation to the entire amount of that type of commerce in the Nation. Opinion of the Court probability of success requires proof of more than intent alone should have been removed by the subsequent passage in Swift which stated that "not every act that may be done with intent to produce an unlawful result . . . constitutes an attempt. It is a question of proximity and degree." Id., at 402. The Lessig court also relied on a footnote in Du Pont & Co., supra, at 395, n. 23, for the proposition that when the charge is attempt to monopolize, the relevant market is "not in issue." That footnote, which appeared in analysis of the relevant market issue in Du Pont, rejected the Government's reliance on several cases, noting that "the scope of the market was not in issue" in Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U. S. 555 (1931). That reference merely reflected the fact that, in Story Parchment, which was not an attempt to monopolize case, the parties did not challenge the definition of the market adopted by the lower courts. Nor was Du Pont itself concerned with the issue in this case. It is also our view that Lessig and later Ninth Circuit decisions refining and applying it are inconsistent with the policy of the Sherman Act. The purpose of the Act is not to protect businesses from the working of the market; it is to protect the public from the failure of the market. The law directs itself not against conduct which is competitive, even severely so, but against conduct which unfairly tends to destroy competition itself. It does so not out of solicitude for private concerns but out of concern for the public interest. See, e. g., Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 488 (1977); Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U. S. 104, 116-117 (1986); Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 320 (1962). Thus, this Court and other courts have been careful to avoid constructions of §2 which might chill competition, rather than foster it. It is some Opinion of the Court times difficult to distinguish robust competition from conduct with long-term anticompetitive effects; moreover, single-firm activity is unlike concerted activity covered by §1, which "inherently is fraught with anticompetitive risk." Copperweld, 467 U. S., at 767-769. For these reasons, §2 makes the conduct of a single firm unlawful only when it actually monopolizes or dangerously threatens to do so. Id., at 767. The concern that §2 might be applied so as to further anticompetitive ends is plainly not met by inquiring only whether the defendant has engaged in "unfair" or "predatory" tactics. Such conduct may be sufficient to prove the necessary intent to monopolize, which is something more than an intent to compete vigorously, but demonstrating the dangerous probability of monopolization in an attempt case also requires inquiry into the relevant product and geographic market and the defendant's economic power in that market. III We hold that petitioners may not be liable for attempted monopolization under §2 of the Sherman Act absent proof of a dangerous probability that they would monopolize a particular market and specific intent to monopolize. In this case, the trial instructions allowed the jury to infer specific intent and dangerous probability of success from the defendants' predatory conduct, without any proof of the relevant market or of a realistic probability that the defendants could achieve monopoly power in that market. In this respect, the instructions misconstrued §2, as did the Court of Appeals in affirming the judgment of the District Court. Since the affirmance of the § 2 judgment against petitioners rested solely on the legally erroneous conclusion that petitioners had attempted to monopolize in violation of § 2 and since the jury's verdict did not negate the possibility that the §2 verdict rested on the attempt to monopolize ground alone, the judg Opinion of the Court ment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, Sunkist Growers, Inc. v. Winckler & Smith Citrus Products Co., 370 U. S. 19, 29-30 (1962), and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.10 So ordered. 10 Respondents conceded in their brief that the case should be remanded to the Court of Appeals if we found error in the instruction on attempt to monopolize. Brief for Respondents 45-46. Syllabus GRAHAM v. COLLINS, DIRECTOR, TEXAS CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 91-7580. Argued October 14, 1992-Decided January 25, 1993 Petitioner Graham's capital murder conviction and death sentence became final in 1984. After unsuccessfully seeking postconviction relief in the Texas state courts, he filed this habeas corpus action in Federal District Court, alleging, inter alia, that the three "special issues" his sentencing jury was required to answer under the state capital sentencing statute then in existence prevented the jury from giving effect, consistent with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, to mitigating evidence of his youth, unstable family background, and positive character traits. In affirming the District Court's denial of relief, the Court of Appeals reviewed this Court's holdings on the constitutional requirement that a sentencer be permitted to consider and act upon any relevant mitigating evidence put forth by a capital defendant, and then ruled that Graham's jury could give adequate mitigating effect to the evidence in question by way of answering the special issues. Held: Graham's claim is barred because the relief he seeks would require announcement of a new rule of constitutional law, in contravention of the principles set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 301 (plurality opinion). Pp. 466-478. (a) A holding that was not "dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final" constitutes a "new rule," 489 U.S., at 301, which, absent the applicability of one of two exceptions, cannot be applied or announced in a case on collateral review, Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 313. Thus, the determinative question is whether reasonable jurists hearing Graham's claim in 1984 "would have felt compelled by existing precedent" to rule in his favor. See Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 488. Pp. 466-467. (b) It cannot be said that reasonable jurists hearing Graham's claim in 1984 would have felt that existing precedent "dictated" vacatur of his death sentence within Teague's meaning. To the contrary, the joint opinion of Justices Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, in Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 270-276, could reasonably be read as having upheld the constitutionality of the very statutory scheme under which Graham was sentenced, including the so-called "special issues," only after being satis |