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Stocks held onto gains Thursday after a slew of economic data, including an encouraging report on manufacturing. Bank of America and JPMorgan led the Dow.
Stocks had initially opened lower, after a surprise jump in jobless claims. Then they got a bump from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's report on manufacturing but pulled back to earlier levels as a report showed delinquencies on mortgages continued to climb.
The Labor Department reported that initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 576,000 last week; economists polled by Reuters had expected to see a drop to 550,000.
And mortgage delinquencies continued to climb in the second quarter, though the percentage of loans that slipped into foreclosure eased slightly, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported.
Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.12 percent this week, down from 5.29 percent last week. Last year at this time, the 30-year fixed averaged 6.47 percent.
Leading indicators rose 0.6 percent in July, as expected, according to a report from the Conference Board reported.
And the Philadelphia Federal Reserve branch said its gauge of manufacturing activity in the region rose to 4.2 in August from minus-7.5 in July.
Still to come: At 10:30 am, the Energy Department is out with its weekly look at natural gas inventories.
This comes after stocks rose for two days, defying expectations that a correction is beginning.
Bank of America [BAC
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] and JPMorgan [JPM
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] were the biggest percentage gainers on the Dow, followed by Alcoa [AA
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].
Bank of America's Countrywide unit lost a court ruling on mortgages.
Sears Holdings [SHLD
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] shares tumbled more than 10 percent after the department-store operator missed earnings expectations amid weak sales.
But ketchup maker H.J. Heinz [HNZ
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] and Spam maker Hormel Foods [HRL
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] both beat expectations.
Google [GOOG
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] was up about 3 percent after Goldman Sachs added it to its "conviction buy" list, saying revenue growth could return to the high teens over the next four quarters.
World stock markets rose, with China erasing its troubling 5 percent drop from the previous day. The British, German and French markets each gained at least 1.4 percent.
After the bell, investors will get quarterly numbers from retailer Gap [GPS
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] and software publisher Intuit [INTU
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In a development that may or may not impact oil trading, Hurricane Bill has been downgraded to a Category 3 storm, although hurricane watchers say it does have the potential for an upgrade back to Category 4.
Oil prices slipped to near $72 a barrel.
And several reports say the White House will trim its budget deficit forecast for the current fiscal year next week—cutting the projected shortfall by about $262 billion to $1.58 trillion. However, that would still be a record.
The lower number would come from the erasure of a contingency fund that had been set aside for more Wall Street bailouts, which will now apparently not be needed.
- Peter Schacknow contributed to this report.
Still to Come:
THURSDAY: Leading indicators; Philly Fed survey; Earnings from Gap, Intuit
FRIDAY: Existing-home sales; Earnings from JM Smucker
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Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes