How the major stock indexes fared Thursday
It's only been a day, but November on Wall Street is already looking a lot better than October.
Strong economic data and corporate news converged Thursday to give U.S. stocks their best day since mid-September. Positive signs about the job market and higher auto and retail sales reports pushed stock futures up before the market opened. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 100 points the first half hour of trading. At 10, two more strong reports came out and pushed the Dow up as much as 177 points. It fell back some, but held a steady gain for the rest of the day.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 136.16 points, or 1 percent, to close at 13,232.62.
The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 15.43 points, or 1.1 percent, to 1,427.59.
The Nasdaq composite index rose added 42.83, or 1.4 percent, to 3,020.06.
For the week:
The Dow is up 125.41 points, or 1 percent.
The S&P 500 is up 15.65 points, or 1.1 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 32.11 points, or 1.1 percent.
For the year:
The Dow is up 1,015.60 points, or 8.3 percent.
The S&P 500 is up 169.99 points, or 13.5 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 414.91 points, or 15.9 percent.
