U.S. Stocks on the Rise
Updated from 9:17 a.m. EDT
After a wobbly, mixed start, U.S. stocks were trading to the upside Thursday, even as traders took in a flood of corporate earnings statements, saw evidence of additional turmoil in the financial sector and stomached a fresh serving of economic data.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was rising 98 points to 8676, and the
S&P 500
rose 10 points to 918. The
Nasdaq
was tacking on 18 points to 1646.
On Wednesday, stocks suffered heavy losses as traders turned their attention away from an internationally coordinated solution to the credit crisis to focus on an increasingly weak domestic economy.
Ahead of the new trading day, Swiss bank
UBS
(UBS) - Get Report
received a $5.3 billion cash injection from the Swiss government in exchange for a 9% equity position in the company.
UBS and the Swiss National Bank
also reached an agreement for UBS to transfer up to $60 billion of currently illiquid securities and other assets from its balance sheet to a separate fund.
There was trouble back in the U.S. as well.
Bloomberg
reported that Citadel Investment Group's largest hedge fund lost as much as 30% this year on bad bets in convertible bonds, stocks and corporate debt.
will once again be in focus. Following the close Wednesday, online auctioneer
(EBAY) - Get Report
swung to a third-quarter profit but said its core business may face difficulties ahead.
Quarterly results from financial firms continued to reflect the impact of the credit crunch.
(C) - Get Report
reported a third-quarter loss that was narrower than the Street had forecast.
Merrill Lynch
(MER)
, meanwhile, posted a widened loss that included a $2.5 billion payment related to a stock offering and a $425 million expense tied to settlement of a government approval of its dealings in auction-rate securities.
Bank of New York Mellon
(BK) - Get Report
and
BB&T
(BBT) - Get Report
announced declines in profit of 53% and 19%, respectively.
Beyond the financials,
(NOK) - Get Report
reported declining profit.
Continental Airlines
(CAL) - Get Report
said it lost money for the quarter, in part because of high fuel costs.
On a positive note, coal company
Peabody Energy
(BTU) - Get Report
reported a 59% increase in third-quarter earnings on rising revenue.
Shifting to economic data, the Department of Labor's September consumer price index showed that prices were unchanged for the month, better than the 0.1% increase expected by economists. The core rate of price increases came in at 0.1%, below a 0.2% increase in August.
The Department of Labor also reported that, for the week ended October 11, jobless claims declined by 16,000 to 461,000, below a consensus estimate of 470,000 and down from 477,000 the previous week.
Industrial production numbers from the
Federal Reserve
showed a 2.8% decline in production, the largest decline since December 1974. The Fed estimated that hurricanes accounted for 2.25% of the decline.
A bit later, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve is set to release its manufacturing index.
Looking at commodities, crude oil was declining 69 cents to $73.85 a barrel. Gold was slipping $3.80 to $835.20.
Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were falling in price. The 10-year note was losing 18/32 to yield 4.01%, and the 30-year was down 28/32, yielding 4.24%. The dollar was gaining on the euro, yen and pound.
Overseas, European markets such as the FTSE in London and the DAX in Frankfurt were trading lower. In
, the Nikkei in Japan and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong closed with losses.
