Hijjah 05, 1431, Nov 11, 2010, SPA -- U.S. stocks finished higher Wednesday, but gains remained modest as investors remain cautious ahead of the Group of Twenty (G20) meeting, which starts Thursday. In U.S. economic news, a jump in petroleum import prices pushed overall U.S. import prices in October to their biggest gain since April, but the increase was less than expected, the government reported Wednesday. Import prices rose 0.9 percent last month as flat capital- and consumer-goods prices partly offset a 3.3 percent surge in petroleum prices, the Labor Department reported. Analysts expected import prices to rise 1.2 percent. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed slightly in September but was still well above last year's imbalance, the Commerce Department said. Trade deficit fell 5.3 percent to $44 billion in September, as imports fell slightly and exports rose, helped by increasing sales of U.S. airplanes and industrial machinery. The trade deficit was at $45.6 billion in August. Meanwhile, the number of people filing for initial jobless claims fell less than expected 435,000 last week to the lowest level in four months, according to the Department of Labor. Economists expected the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment last week to fall to 450,000 from 459,000 during the previous week. In company news, General Motors (GM) reported third-quarter profit of $2 billion on revenue of $34.1 billion as the company prepares for a $13 billion initial public offering. The results marked the automaker's best quarter in at least six years. The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and gained against the yen. Light sweet crude oil for December delivery rose $1.09 to $87.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures fell $10.80 to $1,399.30 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 10.29, or 0.1 percent, to 11,357.04. Boeing announced that it canceled test flights of its 787 Dreamliner, after one of the new airplanes made an emergency landing in Texas because of smoke in the cabin. Shares fell more than three percent. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 5.31, or 0.4 percent, to 1,218.71. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 15.80, or 0.6 percent, to 2,578.78.
