Stocks ended modestly higher on Thursday due to some positive U.S. economic reports, but they fell from the day's highs that had pushed the Dow industrials up for the year. Stocks have been rising since hitting bottom on March 9, with the Dow up more than 30 percent, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 up nearly 40 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq up about 45 percent. U.S. retail sales rose 0.5 percent in May, the government said. The report was in line with forecasts and showed an improvement from April, when sales fell 0.2 percent. Sales excluding autos rose a bigger-than-expected 0.5 percent. U.S. jobless claims fell 24,000 to 601,000 last week, but the total number of Americans receiving jobless benefits rose to 6,816,000, the government said. Another report showed foreclosure filings fell 6 percent last month from April but still posted the third-worst month on record. A Federal Reserve (Fed) report showed Americans saw $1.3 trillion in household wealth disappear in the first quarter of this year, as home values declined and the stock market plunged. Still, the rate of decline was slower than last year, in which $5.1 trillion in wealth disappeared in the fourth quarter. Light sweet crude oil for July delivery rose 1.35 to $72.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close since October. The U.S. dollar fell versus the euro and the yen. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 31.90, or 0.4 percent, to 8,770.92. Despite falling short of its 2008 finish, the index ended at its highest level since January 6. The S&P 500 rose 5.74, or 0.6 percent, to 944.89. The Nasdaq composite index rose 9.29, or 0.5 percent, to 1,862.37. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 65.07 to 6,163.13. The American Stock Exchange composite index rose 28.97 to 1,643.34. And the Russell 2000 index rose 2.37 to 526.08.
