MARKET REPORT

S&P again closes at 5-year high

Trader Kevin Coulter (right) works Thursday on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange where the Standard and Poor’s 500 closed up 11.10 points to 1,472.12.
Trader Kevin Coulter (right) works Thursday on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange where the Standard and Poor’s 500 closed up 11.10 points to 1,472.12.

— The Standard and Poor’s 500 closed at another five-year high Thursday after the stock market got a positive jolt from reports suggesting that the outlook for economic growth is improving.

The S&P 500 rose 11.10 points to 1,472.12, its highest close since December 2007, when the U.S. economy was entering a recession. It had closed at a five-year high Friday and is now 93 points off its record close of 1,565.15, logged in October 2007.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 80.71 points at 13,471.22. The Nasdaq composite rose 15.95 points to 3,121.76.

Rising stocks outnumbered falling ones 2-to-1 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume was higher than average at 4 billion shares.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the struggling euro zone should start growing again later this year, but he warned that the region has yet to reach a turning point in its struggle with recession and handling its government debt load. The comments bolstered expectations that the worst of the region’s crisis may be behind it.

Investors were also cheered by a report that showed that China may gradually be emerging from its worst economic downturn since the 2008 global crisis. Export growth for the world’s secondlargest economy rebounded strongly in December.

Stocks finished the day higher despite a U.S. government report that weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose last week. The Labor Department said applications rose 4,000 to 371,000, the most in five weeks. The previous week’s total was revised lower.

Ford was among the gainers, rising 36 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $13.83 after the company doubled its quarterly dividend to 10 cents, just nine months after paying its first dividend in more than five years.

U.S. companies are sitting on record cash piles, having rebuilt their balance sheets after the financial crisis that started five years ago. Analysts at Deutsche Bank predict that corporations will stop adding to those cash piles this year and instead start returning more cash to shareholders, helping push the S&P 500 up to 1,575 by the end of the year. That would be a 10 percent increase from where it ended 2012.

Traders are also waiting for more indications on the health of U.S. companies from earnings reports.

A good start this week to the earning reports for the fourth quarter of last year helped the market Wednesday after aluminum company Alcoa predicted rising demand for aluminum this year.

Investors will be paying particular attention to the outlook for company sales during this reporting period, said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial. Revenue growth slowed to 0.4 percent in the third quarter of 2012, compared with growth of 11.4 percent in the same period in 2011, according to S&P Capital IQ data.

“The third-quarter earnings season top-line revenue growth pulled back,” said Krosby. “That’s of concern because, when all is said and done, markets are supposed to be a reflection of company earnings.”

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose 4 basis points to 1.90 percent. The yield on the note, which rises as bonds fall, has jumped 30 basis points in the past month.

Business, Pages 26 on 01/11/2013

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