U.S. stocks finished higher Thursday, as investors received mixed reports on housing and initial unemployment benefits. In international economic news, the Irish government reported Thursday that its gross domestic product grew by 0.5 percent, marking the first growth since late 2007. In U.S. economic news, the number of people filing for initial unemployment benefits fell 3,000 to 420,000 in the latest week, the Labor Department said. Meanwhile, continuing claims-those workers who have filed unemployment claims for their second week or more-were up 22,000 to 4.13 million. The number of new private home starts rose in November to 555,000, according to a Commerce Department report. The November figure was 3.9 percent above October figures and higher than analyst estimates. The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and the yen. Light sweet crude oil for January delivery fell 92 cents to $87.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures fell $14.20 to $1,372 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 41.78, or 0.4 percent, to 11,499.25. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.64, or 0.6 percent, to 1,242.87. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 20.09, or 0.8 percent, to 2,637.31.
