U.S. Stocks Break 2-Day Streak

Stocks rallied late, Thursday, erasing earlier losses and halting the recent selloff that took the U.S. markets to the brink of their first three-day losing streak in 2013. The turnaround appears to be technical in nature, with stocks starting to rebound in the afternoon while the S&P 500 fell another 10 points through mid-day, carrying the broad-based market gauge slightly more than 5% below its all-time mark set late last month. Financial stocks helped pace the rebound, closely followed by shares of healthcare and utilities stocks.

Waiting For The NFP
Prior to the late rally, traders appeared largely ready to wait until a Labor Department report, Friday, that is expected to show employers added 165,000 to nonfarm payrolls last month, equal to the gain in April.

Stocks opened mixed following new jobs data showing a 11,000 drop to 346,000 in first-time jobless claims last week, slightly above Wall Street expectations. Trader moods also were muddied somewhat by comments by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi that the ECB is holding off from further stimulus, citing signs they believe indicate the European recession has reached a bottom.

UK Interest Rates
In the U.K., the Bank of England retained its asset-purchase target at 375 billion pounds ($580 billion) and its benchmark interest rate at 0.5%, in line with economists' predictions.

Commodities were mixed. August gold rose $17.30 to $1,415.80 while July silver climbed 23 cents to finish at $22.70 per ounce. July copper settled 5 cents lower at $3.32 per pound. Crude oil for July delivery (CLN13.NYM) settled $1.02 higher at $94.76 per barrel while July natural gas (NGN13.NYM) fell 17 cents to finish at $3.83 per 1-mln BTU.

Here's Where The U.S. Markets Stood At Day's End

• Dow Jones Industrial Average up 80.03 (+0.53%) to 15,040.62
• S&P 500 up 13.66 (+0.85%) to 1,622.56
• Nasdaq Composite Index up 22.58 (+0.66%) to 3,424.05

• Hang Seng Index down 1.05%
• Shanghai China Composite Index down 1.27%
• FTSE 100 Index down 1.30%

• (+) LITB, Shares of the Chinese maker of inexpensive goods like fishing rods and wedding dresses posts double-digit gain during its first day of NYSE trading. It raised $79 mln in its initial public offering of stock.
• (+) SODA, Overnight chatter from Europe had the home soda-fountain company in buyout talks with PepsiCo (PEP), with SODA reportedly valued over $2 bln, according to an Israeli business website. But PEP chief executive Indra Nooyi said during a visit in Myanmar it was the first time she had heard about the talks, Bloomberg reports. PEP is down 0.5%.
• (+) CIEN, Reports surprise adjusted profit of $0.02 per share after one-time items were excluded. Revenue rose 6.3% to $507.7 mln. Analysts, on average, were looking for a $0.01 per share loss on $483.6 mln in revenue. Shares of other networking equipment firms also rose, including JDSU,FNSR and CSCO.

• (-) PAY, Reports Q2 earnings of $0.42 per share, ex items, trailing the analyst consensus by $0.05 per share. Revenue declined 8.9% year over year to $430 mln, missing Street expectations by $11.07 mln. Forecasts Q3 EPS of $0.20 on around $400 mln in revenue. The Street is looking for a $0.50 per share profit and $461.29 mln in revenue.
• (-) ASNA, Adjusted Q3 earnings of $0.26 per share trail the Capital IQ consensus by $0.04 per share. Revenue rose 45.8% to $1.14 bln, missing expectations by around $30 mln. Lowered and narrowed FY13 EPS guidance. Other women's clothiers - including FRAN, VRA, CWTR - also declined after posting sub-par quarterly results.
• (-) RST, Prices secondary public offering of 3.5 mln shares at $16 apiece, with 3.49 mln of the shares offered by ABS Capital Partners IV Trust and Norwest Equity Partners VIII LP. RST sold 10,000 shares, using the $160,000 in gross proceeds to pay offering expenses for ABS Capital and Norwest Equity.