Home Depot gains lift Wall Street higher

Dow Jones: 12,277.35(+79.47) S&P 500: 1,318.81 (+8.62) Nasdaq: 2,756.89 (+26.21)US STOCKS advanced yesterday, sending the Standard and Poor's 500 Index to a three-week high, as Home Depot drove consumer companies higher and energy shares rose amid speculation production will increase in the Middle East.

Home Depot rose 2.9 per cent, the most in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as the largest US home-improvement retailer sold $2 billion in bonds to help finance buybacks.

Rowan and Schlumberger rallied more than 4.4 per cent as oil gained 0.8 per cent.

AK Steel Holding advanced 5.2 per cent as SAC Capital Advisors LP reported a stake.

Apollo, owner of the biggest US for-profit college, fell 4.3 per cent following lower enrolment.

The S&P 500 rose 0.7 per cent to 1,318.81 in New York. It rebounded after falling to 1,305.26, compared with yesterday’s 50-day average of 1,306.11, a bullish sign to some traders.

The Dow gained 79.47 points, or 0.65 per cent, to 12,277.35, three days before a US government report forecast to show non-farm payrolls increased by 190,000 in March.

“It’s hard not to want to be a part of this market when there’s clear economic momentum being driven by the jobs market,” said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management.

“Any other week, these downgrades of Greece and Portugal would knock the market down,” he said.

The benchmark measure of US shares closed at a 32-month high of 1,343.01 on February 18th.

“There are a lot of technical factors also playing out,” Mr Paulsen said. “You’re bowling through the 50-day moving average and zeroing in on a run at whether we’ll get to that 1,345 level” on the SP 500, he said.

Amazon.com rose 3.1 per cent to $174.62 after it introduced a service offering remote access to music, ahead of rivals Apple and Google.

Cisco Systems gained 1.8 per cent to $17.44 after it said it plans to buy software company newScale for an undisclosed amount to boost its cloud computing services.

Lennar, the third-largest US home builder, fell 3.4 per cent to $19.07 after reporting a drop in revenue. – (Bloomberg/Reuters)