U.S. stocks jump on Ukraine ceasefire agreement

U.S. stocks posted modest gains around midday Thursday,as investors cheered a ceasefire agreement on the Ukraine conflict.

At noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 62.59 points, or 0.35 percent, to 17,924.73. The S&P 500 rose 13.35 points, or 0. 65 percent, to 2,081.88. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 38.22 points, or 0.80 percent, to 4,839.40.

Russia President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he and leaders of France, Germany and Ukraine had agreed on the withdrawal of heavy weapons from Ukraine's frontlines and a ceasefire to begin from Feb. 15.

Investors brushed aside tensions around Greek debt negotiations with the cease-fire agreement. Eurozone finance ministers' negotiations over Greek debt failed to yield an agreement Wednesday, with the talks scheduled to resume on Feb. 23.

Economic data came in mixed. The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims in the week ending Feb. 7 was 304, 000, well above market consensus of 288,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week's revised level, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

However, the advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January showed a decrease of 0.8 percent from the previous month, exceeding market expectations of a 0.5-percent decline, announced the Commerce Department Thursday.

On corporate news, shares of Tesla Motors plummeted nearly 6 percent around midday Thursday after the electric-car maker stunned Wall Street by delivering a fourth-quarter adjusted loss of 13 cents per share.

Cisco shares soared over 9 percent after reporting a much stronger than excepted quarterly results. The network equipment maker said its second quarter net income for the period ended Jan. 24 increased 67.7 percent from a year ago to 2.4 billion dollars. Endite