U.S. Stocks Ease Early

Updated from 7:56 a.m. EDT

Wall Street was at a standstill early Thursday as mixed economic data helped offset the latest influx of disappointing corporate numbers.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 30 points at 12,793, and the S&P 500 added 2 points to 1382. The Nasdaq Composite rose 3 points to 2408.

Futures had been pointing to a sharply lower open, but the mood improved after the Labor Department reported that the number of people filing for unemployment benefits dropped by 33,000 people last week to a better-than-expected 342,000. The consensus called for an unchanged figure.

Also, durable-goods orders stepped back 0.3% last month, according to the Commerce Department. That's worse than the flat number economists were expecting, but still an improvement on February's figure, which itself was revised to minus 0.9% from the prior drop of 1.7%.

Elsewhere, the Census Bureau said new-home sales in March sank 8.5% to a 526,000 annual pace. A number more on the order of 580,000 had been anticipated.

Among equities, Ford's (F Quote) shares bounced 6.7% after the carmaker posted a surprise first-quarter profit of $100 million thanks to a robust showing in Europe and South America. That offset a loss in its North American segment, which itself was narrowed sharply from last year.

Also rising was Credit Suisse (CS Quote), despite posting its first shortfall in more than five years as it wrote off $5.14 billion in bad assets. That pales in comparison to writedowns at Swiss rival UBS (UBS Quote), however, and Credit Suisse called its capital position "strong," suggesting it won't need to raise any cash, as UBS was forced to do this month. Credit Suisse shares rose 2.6%.