Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/86254
10A Daily News – Friday, October 5, 2012 NEW YORK (AP) — An encouraging report on the labor market and better sales from Costco and other retail stores helped push the stock market higher Thursday. The government said that 367,000 Americans sought unemployment benefits for the first time last week. That's an increase from the previous week but fewer than economists had forecast. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 80.75 points to close at 13,575.36. Alu- minum giant Alcoa led the 30 stocks in the Dow with a 3.3 percent surge, rising 29 cents to $9.07. ''It's not just the job- less claims numbers on their own,'' said Brian Gendreau, market strategist at Cetera Financial Group. Dow Jones average climbs after jobs report Wall Street ''They're coming on the back of ... manufactur- ing and service-sector reports that were better than people expected this week.'' Poor's 500 index climbed 10.41 points to 1,461.40. The Nasdaq composite rose 14.23 points to 3,149.46. The job-market report helped drive the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note up to 1.67 percent from 1.62 percent late Wednesday. Traders tend to sell Treasurys following better eco- nomic news. The Standard & The Commerce Department said that orders to U.S. factories came in better than fore- casts, even though the 5.2 percent drop in orders was the biggest in more than three years. Costco and other retail chain stores reported September sales that came in ahead of Wall Street's esti- mates. Costco gained $1.86 to $101.48. Target rose 56 cents to $63.65. The stock market barely moved following the release of the Feder- al Reserve's minutes from its meeting last month, when the Fed hatched a new open- ended program to spend $40 billion a month on mortgage bonds. The minutes revealed that all but one member of the Fed's interest-rate committee voted in favor of the bond-buy- ing effort. The key event this week comes Friday morning when the Labor Department releases its monthly jobs report. Economists forecast that the unemployment rate inched up to 8.2 percent in September from 8.1 percent in August. ket indexes have climbed steadily higher to start October. The Dow rose 78 points Monday after the Insti- tute for Supply Manage- ment said its gauge of manufacturing rose in September for the first time in four months. For the month, the Dow is up an even 1 percent and the S&P 500 is up 1.4 percent. Among other stocks making big moves: — Google rose $5.55 to $768.05. The Internet giant and U.S. publish- Reach and motivate North State voters with Tehama County's Most Visited Local Website: www.redbluffdailynews 275,000 page views in August, 2012 77,712 website visits Average visit time almost 12 minutes! 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(530) 527-2151 Gayla Eckels: geckels@redbluffdailynews.com Doris Hoagland: dhoagland@redbluffdailynews.com Suzy Noble: snoble@redbluffdailynews.com The major stock mar- authors remains, though. ers announced they had settled a seven-year dis- pute over Google's book-scanning project. A lawsuit filed by — Sprint Nextel sank 2 percent, or 11 cents, to $5.09. Reports said the wireless carrier may launch a competing bid for MetroPCS Commu- nications. That would pit Sprint against Deutsche Telekom, which plans to merge MetroPCS with its T- Mobile USA unit. — Avery Dennison's stock dropped following news that 3M Co. dis- solved an agreement to buy Avery Dennison's office and consumer products division. The Department of Justice had threatened to block the deal, saying that the sale to 3M, the maker of Post-It notes, would curtail competition in the market for sticky labels. Avery Dennison lost $1.38 to $30.07. owner Sebastian Figueredo stood Thursday at a Union 76 gas station near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, holding his phone up high so he could get a photo of the price sign. cents a gallon overnight SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Landscaping business Calif gas prices spike 8 A gallon of regular at the station was selling for $4.79, up from $4.59 the day before. Premium gasoline was $4.99. ''Every time these go up, I can't just raise my hourly rate up as well,'' Figueredo complained. Throughout California, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline jumped 8 cents overnight to $4.32, and was up 18 cents during the past week, according to the AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge. Analysts said it was poised to quickly soar past $4.37 a gallon — the high so far this year — after refinery outages and pipeline problems left the state short on supplies. The highest average price ever for regular gasoline in the state was $4.61 in 2008. Among the recent disruptions, a fire at a Chevron refin- ery in Richmond on Aug. 6 left one of the region's largest refineries producing at a reduced capacity. A power failure in Southern California has affected an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery, and a Chevron pipeline that moves crude to North- ern California was also shut down. Elsewhere, the national average for gas is $3.78 a gallon, the highest ever for this time of year. However, gas prices in many states have started moving lower, which is typical for October. dy.com, said he is seeing the highest prices in the state around Los Angeles, where at least five stations have crossed the $5 a gallon mark, including $5.29 in Burbank and $5.11 in Norwalk. Prices will keep rising, he says, because in the past week wholesale gasoline prices have jumped $1 a gallon, but average retail prices have only increased 30 cents so far. ''This is one of the easiest forecasts: Retail prices are going to skyrocket,'' he said. But in California, gasoline inventories are the lowest in more than 10 years — a situation made worse by the state's strict pollution limits that require a special blend of cleaner- burning gasoline. Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBud- The jump in wholesale prices can be particularly tough on independent gas stations that often pay more for their gas because they are not part of a larger chain. Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said he's heard of a few California station owners shutting their pumps rather than charging the $4.90 a gallon or more necessary to break even.