By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks traded mostly higher Thursday, with the S&P 500 struggling to extend its best yearly start since 1989, after jobless claims rose last week and personal income climbed in January.
“The stock market appears to be headed for its best January performance in 24 years,” emailed Fred Dickson, chief investment strategist at Davidson Companies.
The S&P 500 index SPX -0.05% fell 1.80 point to 1,500.16.
While the underlying factors supporting the market’s climb to five-year highs remain intact, “we are starting see some signs of stock-price consolidation, as the S&P 500 struggles to move much above 1,500,” Dickson noted.
Absent a 5.3% drop Thursday, the month will be a positive one for the S&P 500, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “And as January goes, so goes the year,” said Silverblatt, who noted the year has moved in the same direction as January for 61 of the last 84 years, or almost 73% of the time.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +0.08% rose 2.68 points to 13,913.10.
The Nasdaq Composite COMP +0.24% gained 4.83 points, or 0.2%, to 3,147.14.
Advancers nearly kept pace with decliners on the New York Stock Exchange, where 152 million shares traded as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern.
Composite volume topped 805 million.
The Labor Department reported first-time applications for unemployment benefits climbed 38,000 last week, the biggest jump since Nov. 10, to 368,000. The weekly numbers come ahead of Friday’s nonfarm-payrolls report for January. Read: Initial jobless claims rise.
“Today, traders will be looking toward tomorrow’s monthly employment report, thus holding back funds earmarked for equity purchases until they see how many jobs the economy created during February,” Dickson said.
A Chicago-area purchasing managers index rose in January, data showed. Read: Chicago PMI climbs in January.
MasterCard Inc. MA -0.44% shares rose 0.6% after the card-payment-processor reported an increase in fourth-quarter profit. Read: MasterCard shares up on surging profit.
Facebook Inc. FB -3.65% shares fell 4% after the social-networking site reported a steep drop in fourth-quarter profit. Read: Facebook downgraded by several analysts.
JDS Uniphase Corp. JDSU +18.02% climbed 19% after it reported earnings and Qualcomm Inc. QCOM +5.50% gained on the semiconductor seller’s forecast of higher-than-expected second-quarter sales and profit.
United Parcel Service Inc. UPS -1.87% fell 2% after it projected yearly profit below Wall Street’s estimates as a soft global economy reduced shipment demand.
Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York.
