United States stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index erasing earlier losses, as investors weighed the Federal Reserve’s stimulus plans before a report on employment growth on Friday.
Verizon Communications Incorporated jumped by 3.4 per cent as phone stocks gained the most in the S&P 500.
Bloomberg News reports that Costco Wholesale Corporation advanced by one per cent after reporting an increase in sales.
VeriFone Systems Incorporated plunged by 21 per cent as the maker of credit-card terminals forecast earnings that missed analysts’ estimates.
Verizon Communications Inc. jumped 3.4 percent as phone stocks gained the most in the S&P 500. Costco Wholesale Corporation advanced by one per cent after reporting an increase in sales.
VeriFone Systems Incorporation plunged by 21 per cent as the maker of credit-card terminals forecast earnings that missed analysts’ estimates.
The S&P 500 rose by 0.4 per cent to 1,615.14 at 3 p.m. in New York after earlier falling as much as 0.7 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 19.24 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 14,979.83.
Trading in S&P 500 stocks was in line with the 30-day average during this time of day.
“It’s wait-and-see before the jobs report tomorrow,” Frank Ingarra, head trader at Greenwich, Connecticut-based NorthCoast Asset Management LLC, said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees $1.6bn.
“It all depends on how traders will read that data and its effect on the Fed’s decision making. We need to be assured that the Fed will not taper off monetary stimulus or we need to see significant improvement in the economy to get the next leg up in the rally.”
The Federal Reserve stimulus and better-than-expected earnings have have propelled the bull market in US equities into a fifth year and driven the S&P 500 up by 139 per cent from a 12-year low in 2009.
The benchmark gauge has dropped by 3.2 per cent since closing at a record high on May 21, the day before Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke suggested the central bank could curtail its $85bn in monthly bond buying if the job market improves in a “real and sustainable way.”