Stocks closed narrowly higher Thursday, after an upbeat report on business conditions in the Chicago area extended the celebration by investors of Wednesday’s record high for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, the first record in more than seven years.
Corporate takeover news continued to promote optimism. North Carolina-based bank Wachovia agreed to acquire St. Louis-based broker A.G. Edwards for $6.8 billion.
Technology stocks rallied after better-than-expected quarterly reports by telecommunications equipment-maker Ciena and software developer Novell.
After the close of regular trading, shares of computer-maker Dell climbed. The company posted surprisingly good quarterly results and announced it would trim 10 percent of its workforce.
Wall Street closed out a strong month, which saw the Dow Jones industrial average gain 4.3 percent and the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index both increase 3.2 percent.
In Thursday’s session, the S&P 500, which is the performance benchmark for many equity mutual funds, edged up 0.39, to 1530.62. But the Dow, which also set a record high Wednesday, slipped 5.44 points, to 13,627.64. The Nasdaq rose 11.93, to 2604.52.
New York Stock Exchange trading volume reached 1.81 billion shares. Winning stocks outnumbered losers by a 4-3 ratio among NYSE stocks. Nasdaq trading volume totaled 2.34 billion shares, as winners topped losers by a 3-2 ratio.
Traders awaited Friday’s Labor Department report on job growth and unemployment in May. Economists on average expect that employers added about 135,000 jobs in the month, up from just 88,000 jobs in April.
Treasury securities fell Thursday, sending 10-year Treasury note yields to nearly nine-month highs, to 4.9 percent, after the May business conditions index compiled by Chicago-area corporate purchasing managers climbed more than expected, to 61.7 from 52.9 in April.
The Chicago-area news offset a downward revision of first-quarter gross domestic product growth. Economic growth in the first three months of 2007 was the weakest quarterly increase in more than four years.
Crude oil rose 52 cents a barrel, to $64.01, in New York futures trading.
