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10A Daily News – Friday, July 8, 2011 NEW YORK (AP) — A rebound in retail sales and strong jobs reports pushed stocks near their highest levels of the year. U.S. retailers had their best June sales results since 1999 as shoppers were lured into stores by warm weather and deep discounts. Kohl’s Corp., Target Corp., and Urban Outfitters Inc. each gained more than 6 percent. Investors have been concerned that high gas prices would constrain consumer spending as people looked for ways to save money. The higher sales figures reassured markets that consumers were becoming more will- ing to spend again. ‘‘The closest thing to an unadulterated barome- ter of our progress is $32.00 in Discount Coupons were published last week in the D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY … And that does not Count all the ads offering percentage discounts, two-for-ones and Free-with-Purchase offers! Don’t miss a Day of it! Subscribe Today 527-2151 It pays for itself. Retail sales and jobs reports send stocks higher Wall Street same-store sales,’’ said Jack Ablin, chief invest- ment officer at Harris Pri- vate Bank in Chicago. Same-store sales for the 28 retailers who reported them on Thursday were up 6.9 percent. ‘‘Every- thing is tied to it: Sales drives profits, profits drive hiring and hiring drives sales. It’s a neat, virtuous circle.’’ An improving job mar- ket likely helped. The number of people who made first-time claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week to a seven-week low of 418,000, the government reported. That’s a sign that employers are laying off fewer workers. Separately, payroll processor Automatic Data Processing said compa- nies added 157,000 employees in June. The bulk of the hiring came from small businesses. The tally is more than double the number econo- mists had forecast and far more than the 36,000 added the previous month. The report isn’t always an points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 12,719.49. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index added 14 points, or 1.1 percent, to 1,353.22. The tech-focused Nasdaq composite closed at 2,872.66 after gaining 1.4 percent. It briefly traded at a new high for the year of 2,877. accurate predictor of the Labor Department’s monthly unemployment report, but has been more of a bellwether in recent months. The Labor Department’s report will be released Friday. The Dow Jones indus- trial average gained 93.47 The Dow and S&P 500 are close to their 2011 highs, reached on April 29. Then came higher gas prices, a slowdown in manufacturing and job growth and bad weather in the South. That led to con- cerns that the economic recovery was stalling. At the same time, worries about a debt default by Greece also heightened fears of a European finan- cial crisis. The Dow and S&P had six straight weeks of declines falling as much as 8 percent off their April highs. Just three weeks ago, the S&P index had given up nearly all of its gains for the year. A rebound in a key manufacturing index and stronger sales figures from Nike Inc. and other com- panies pushed the index up nearly 6 percent since June 15th. Signs of a deal to help Greece avoid default and allow the country to restructure its debt also calmed financial markets. The Dow and S&P 500 are now up 2.5 percent so far this month. The Dow is up 9.86 per- cent for the year. Trading has been light in the stock market this week. Markets were closed in the U.S. on Monday for the July 4th holiday. No major corpo- rate earnings came out this week. Aluminum maker Alcoa Inc. is the first major U.S. company to report second-quarter earnings on Monday. The Labor Department releases its closely- watched monthly employ- ment report before the market opens Friday. Economists estimate the unemployment rate will remain at 9.1 percent and that employers added only 90,000 jobs last month. But some experts now believe that number could be higher. After the ADP figures were released, economists at Deutsche Bank raised their forecasts for the number of jobs cre- ated in June to 175,000 from 100,000. Four stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was average at 3.6 billion shares. Oil and gasoline prices on the rise again A funny thing hap- pened on the way to lower oil and gasoline prices: They went up. Two weeks after the U.S. and other oil-import- ing nations took action RANDAL S. ELLOWAY DDS IMPLANTS DENTISTRY 2426 SO. 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By Appointment 1.800.770.0240 Call Today • FREE Blood Pressure, Pulse and Blood Oxygen Saturation Test Included ABDOMINAL PACKAGE: - Liver Screening - Kidney Screening - Gallbladder Screening - Pancreas Screening - Spleen Screening - Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening $150 CARDIOVASCULAR PACKAGE: - Heart Ultrasound - Atrial Fibrillation - Stroke Screen (Carotid Arteries) - Thyroid Ultrasound Screening - CardioVision Arterial Stiffness Index $150 Both Packages $200 a SAVINGS of $100 Friday, July 15, 2011 Mt. Olive Luthern Church 341 E. Solano St., Corning will rise. Benchmark oil for August delivery rose $2.02, or 2.1 percent, to settle at $98.67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude gained $4.97, or 4.4 per- cent, to settle at $118.59 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. Higher oil prices mean higher gas prices. The national average pump price rose 1.4 cents on Thursday to $3.583 a gal- lon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Informa- tion Service. That’s up 4.2 cents from a week ago but still 86 cents more than a year ago. Gas prices likely will remain choppy, rising or falling within a 20-cent range for the rest of the summer, according to Oil Price Information Service analyst Tom Kloza. They probably won’t push back to near $4 a gallon, where they were in early May, barring floods or hurri- canes that could affect refinery operations. While most experts agree that the world has plenty of oil, there are concerns that supplies could get tight as demand rises. The U.S. and other nations in the Internation- al Energy Agency have said they will release 60 million barrels of crude from emergency stocks to cover possible shortfalls caused by the shutdown of Libyan oil production because of ongoing unrest there. Libya supplied about 2 percent of the world’s oil, much of it high-grade crude used for refined products like gaso- line.