Stocks were up on Thursday due to corporate profit reporting and a decrease in those applying for unemployment benefits. The rise came after the S&P 500 fell for two consecutive days.
Early in today's session the S&P 500 index jumped to its highest intraday level in nearly a year. The Nasdaq showed a brief rise above 2000, for the first time since October of 2008. But, by day's end, the market lost ground and fell below 2000 again.
With tomorrow being the last day of the month, the Dow is set to have its best monthly percentage gain since the latter part of 2002. Either way, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq will more than likely post their fifth consecutive month of gains.
At today's closing bell, the Dow and the Nasdaq were both up more than 8 % for July, while the S&P 500 was up nearly 7 1/2 %.
Although unemployment benefit claims rose slightly for the week ending July 25th, the four-week moving average for new benefit claims tells a different story. The four-week moving average, which is a much better guage of current trends, shows that unemployment claims dropped to their lowest level since the first month of 2009.
