NEW YORK - Upbeat news about jobs and retailers helped the Standard & Poor’s 500 index snap its longest losing streak of the year Thursday.
U.S. unemployment claims fell close to their lowest level in six years, the government reported, and J.C. Penney and Bed Bath & Beyond delivered encouraging news.
The positive trends outweighed worries about a potential government shutdown in Washington next week. Those concerns had led the S&P 500 index to five consecutive days of declines, the index’s worst run in 2013.
That ended Thursday when the S&P 500 index rose 5.90 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 1,698.67. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 55.04 points, or 0.4 percent, to 15,328.30. The Nasdaq climbed 26.33 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3,787.43.
“There’s a little bit of a bounce here,” said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at BanyanPartners. “It may be a little bit of bargain hunting.”
The broad index is less than 2 percent below its all-time high from Sept. 18. Nine of 10 main groups in the S&P 500 advanced, with phone stocks and producers of consumer-discretionary products rising 0.9 percent.
The U.S. economy was growing at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the April-through-June quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. That was an increase from the 1.1 percent growth in the previous quarter.
Applications for unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 305,000 last week, the government said, the fewest since September 2007, three months before the recession began.
While the economic news was encouraging, it wasn’t spectacular. Some analysts said it justified the Federal Reserve’s surprise decision last week to keep up its economic stimulus.
The U.S. central bank has been spending $85 billion a month buying bonds to keep long-term interest rates low, which has encouraged borrowing and driven up stock prices.
Wall Street had expected the Fed to start easing back on its stimulus already.
“It’s fair to say that the Fed got it right by delaying” the cuts to stimulus, said Ron Florance, deputy chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank. “Growth is uninteresting and subdued.”
Growth-sensitive retail stocks were among the best performers in the 10 industry groups that make up the S&P 500 index.
The group got a lift from department store owner J.C. Penney, which said it was pleased with its turnaround efforts.
J.C. Penney’s stock rose 30 cents, or 3 percent, to close at $10.42. The stock climbed as high as $11.22 during the day.
Bed Bath & Beyond was also a bright spot in the retail sector. The stock climbed $3.32, or 4 percent, to $77.54 after the company said its quarterly profit increased 11 percent.
In government bond trading,the yield on the 10-year note edged up to 2.64 percent from 2.63 percent late Wednesday.
Among other stocks making big moves:
Hertz shares fell $4.15, or 16 percent, to $21.63 after the carrental company cut its earnings and revenue forecasts because of weaker-than-expected demand at U.S. airports.
Shares of Caesars Entertainment slipped $1.08, or 5 percent, to $19.84 after the company said late Wednesday that it plans to sell up to 11.5 million of its shares in a public offering.
Jabil Circuit Inc. shares fell 9.9 percent to $21.62 for the biggest retreat in the S&P 500.The electronics company that counts BlackBerry Ltd. as its second-largest customer said Wednesday that it will probably disengage from the struggling Canadian device-maker in coming months. Jabil also forecast first-quarter profit below analyst estimates.
Information for this article was contributed by Lu Wang and Sofia Horta e Costa of Bloomberg News.
Business, Pages 26 on 09/27/2013