Off the wire
• U.S. new home sales fall in March from 7-year high  • 2nd LD Writethru: Obama says to take full responsibility for accidental killing of hostages  • Roundup: S. African tourism falls victim to anti-foreigner violence  • Belgium to increase investment for anti-terrorism police units  • Day Three: Wang Shixian suffers host's only defeat at Badminton Asia Championships  • Sri Lanka thanks China for assistance  • France stripped of Olympic equestrian's team eventing berth for doping  • Interview: Finland's Social Democratic Party suffers heaviest ever election loss  • Alstom wins 72 mln euros contract to build Shanghai trams  • Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, April 23  
You are here: 　 Home

U.S. stocks extend gains amid earnings, data

Xinhua, April 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks were mildly higher around midday Thursday, as investors assessed a heavy day of earnings and economic data.

At noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 44.34 points, or 0.25 percent, to 18,082.61. The S&P 500 gained 5.57 points, or 0.26 percent, to 2,113.53. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 11.74 points, or 0.23 percent, to 5,046.91.

Facebook shares fell 1.45 percent around midday Thursday, a day after its posting of quarterly revenue that missed analysts' estimates. The social networking website company's revenue for the first quarter of 2015 totaled 3.54 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 42 percent, compared with 2.50 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2014.

General Motors delivered quarterly profit and revenue that missed expectations Thursday, causing its shares to drop 3.61 percent around midday. The company announced first quarter net income attributable to common stockholders of 0.9 billion dollars, or 0.56 dollars per diluted share.

PepsiCo reported quarterly earnings that beat markets' expectations, but its quarterly net revenue declined 3 percent from a year earlier, reflecting the impact of adverse foreign exchange translation. Its shares were down 0.90 percent around midday.

U.S. economic data came out negative. In the week ending April 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims increased 1,000 from the previous week's unrevised level to 295,000, beating market expectations, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

Sales of new single-family houses in March 2015 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 481,000, well below market consensus, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Commerce Thursday.

This is 11.4 percent below the revised February rate of 543,000, but is 19.4 percent above the March 2014 estimate of 403,000. Endite