Tucson CitizenTucson Citizen

Stocks mostly gain after earnings surprises

NEW YORK – Investors cherrypicked stocks in early trading Thursday after a batch of better-than-expected earnings reports offset some mixed economic news.

Earnings reports from banks and industrial companies fed hopes that some businesses might be stabilizing despite the recession.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. became the latest bank to report better-than-expected first-quarter earnings. The market interpreted the company’s results as another sign that the banking industry is stabilizing. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. also had upbeat earnings news in the past week.

Strength in the financial industry has been central to the market’s rally over the past five weeks.

JPMorgan said its first-quarter profit fell to $2.1 billion, or 40 cents per share, from $2.4 billion, or 67 cents per share, a year ago. Analysts were expecting a profit of 32 cents per share.

New government data provided mixed signs about the economy. The Labor Department announced new weekly claims for jobless benefits fell more than expected to 610,000 from a revised figure of 663,000 the previous week. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting claims to total 655,000 last week.

But, those continuing to file for claims again hit a record high, rising to 6 million.

A new housing report also showed weakness, with March construction of new homes and apartments falling to the second lowest level on record. The Commerce Department said housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 510,000 units.

In the first hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 11.00, or 0.1 percent, to 8,018.62.

Broader stock indicators rose. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.82, or 0.1 percent, to 851.24, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 13.08, or 0.8 percent, to 1,639.88. The tech-heavy Nasdaq’s gain came after technology stocks lagged the broader market Wednesday following results from Intel Corp.

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Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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