Stocks rallied for a second straight session Thursday as oil prices fell and investors received more, much-needed good news from the financial sector in the form of better-than-expected earnings from JPMorgan Chase (JPM).
In three days, the price of a barrel of oil has plunged more than $15. On the NYMEX Thursday, crude oil fell $5.31 to $129.29 per barrel. Evidence of easing tensions between the U.S. and Iran might be contributing to oil's fall, Action Economics says.
JPMorgan posted earnings of 54 cents, vs. $1.20 a year ago, and revenue fell 2.7%. However, Wall Street was expecting earnings about 10 cents per share lower. The bank took a $540 million hit related to its acquisition of Bear Stearns.
The JPMorgan report isn't the only evidence that some financial firms are avoiding the full impact of the financial crisis. Also Thursday, PNC Financial Services (PNC), the largest bank in Pennsylvania, said its second quarter profits rose 19%. Earnings of $1.45 per share beat analysts estimates by 29 cents. On Wednesday, Wells Fargo (WFC) sparked a stock market rally when it raised it dividend and its second quarter profits impressed investors.
"A little more optimism is warranted," says John Merrill, chief investment officer of Tanglewood Capital Management. Financial firms are "still performing poorly, but just not as poorly as expected."
But a fresh batch of earnings reports released after the closing bell Thursday painted a less than favorable picture for Friday's session, with a lower than expected profit from tech heavyweights Google (GOOG), a disappointing outlook from Microsoft (MSFT), and word of more big losses at Merrill Lynch (MER).
On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 207.38 points, or 1.85%, to 11,446.66. The broader S&P 500 rose 14.95 points, or 1.2%, to 1,260.31. And the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 27.45 points, or 1.2%, to 2,312.30.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 24 stocks rose for every eight that fell in price. On the Nasdaq, the ratio was 19 to 9 positive.
On Wednesday, the Dow rose 277 points, and both the Dow and S&P 500 rose more than 2.5%. The Nasdaq jumped 3.12%.
Second quarter earnings season was in full swing Thursday, as Coca-Cola (KO), United Technologies (UTX) and EBay (EBAY) and many other firms posted results.
In economic news, U.S. jobless claims rose 18,000 to 366,000 in the week ended July 12, from 348,000 the week before. However, the four-week moving average fell, and continuing claims slipped 81,000 to 3.1 million in the week ended July 5.
U.S. housing starts surged 9.1% to a pace of 1.066 million in June, from 977,000 in May. Starts are still down 26.9% from a year ago. And, much of the increase in starts was due to a change in New York City construction code that went into effect July 1, and prompted builders to seek permits for construction multi-family dwellings.
