Better data on jobs, retail sales lift stocks
So close, but it just couldn’t finish the job: The Dow Jones industrial average was on track Thursday to erase the last of its 2009 losses, until a sell-off in the final minutes left that milestone barely out of reach.
The blue-chip index gained 31.90 points, or 0.4%, to 8,770.92. That left it down a mere 0.06% from its year-end 2008 close of 8,776.39. It was up as much as 136 points Thursday before profit-taking set in.
The Dow is the last of the major market gauges still in the red for the year. Others, including the Standard & Poor’s 500, Nasdaq composite and New York Stock Exchange composite, already have recouped all of the losses sustained in the market’s dive from January to early March.
The S&P; 500 hit a new 2009 high Thursday, adding 5.74 points, or 0.6%, to 944.89. That extended its gain from the 12-year low reached March 9 to 39.7%. It’s up 4.6% for the year -- though still down almost 40% from its record high reached in October 2007.
Stocks overall rallied Thursday as Treasury bond yields finally retreated, after the government finished this week’s sale of $65 billion of longer-term securities.
Economic data, including May retail sales figures, also encouraged investors. And a continuing rise in oil prices helped the market by lifting energy-related shares. Chevron, a Dow component, jumped 2.4%.
Near-term crude futures in New York rose $1.35 to $72.68 a barrel, a new eight-month high.
When do climbing oil prices become a problem rather than a help for the stock market? That may be up to consumers, and whether they begin to cut back further on other spending because of rising prices at the gas pump.
Among other market highlights Thursday:
* The Nasdaq composite index climbed 9.29 points, or 0.5%, to 1,862.37. The tech-heavy index is up 18% this year. The Russell 2,000 index of smaller-company stocks also rose 0.5%, giving it a year-to-date gain of 5.3%.
* Advancing issues outnumbered those that fell by more than 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange.
* Shares of Palm jumped 12% after the hand-held-device pioneer said Chairman Jon Rubinstein, the developer of its recently launched Pre cellphone, would take over as chief executive.
* Boeing slumped 3.1% after the aerospace company cut its 20-year forecast for industrywide sales of commercial airplanes.
* Del Monte Foods rose 8.8%. The food supplier issued higher-than-expected forecasts of its sales and profit for the fiscal year that began last month.
* Overseas, key stock indexes rose 0.9% in Japan, 0.6% in Britain and France, and 1.1% in Germany.
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Times wire services were used in compiling this report.
