The Dow industrials managed to advance Thursday after encouraging sings in U.S. economic reports, but the gains were modest and technology selling kept the Nasdaq from joining the advance. A three-month market rally has lost momentum over the last week, as bets that the pace of the recession is slowing have turned to worries that the market is ahead of the broader economy. In economic news, the number of Americans making new claims for jobless benefits rose slightly last week, but continuing jobless claims—the number of people collecting unemployment insurance after one initial week—fell for the first time since early January, the government reported. The index of leading economic indicators—a closely watched gauge of U.S. economic activity in the coming three to six months—rose 1.2 percent in May, a private research group reported. Light sweet crude oil for July delivery rose 17 cents to $71.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The U.S. dollar gained versus the euro and the yen. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 58.42, or 0.7 percent, to 8,555.60. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.66, or 0.8 percent, to 918.37. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index was virtually unchanged, falling 0.34 to 1,807.72. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 41.65 to 5,906.20. The American Stock Exchange composite index fell 5.15 to 1,570.70. And the Russell 2000 index rose 2.45 to 509.48.
