Wall Street struggles higher after weak retail report

Wall Street looked past disappointing data on US retail sales and posted modest gains on Thursday as traders banked on positive news on corporate earnings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 29.78 points (0.28 percent) to end at 10,710.55, reversing a weak opening and hitting its best close since October 1, 2008.
The Nasdaq composite rose 8.84 points (0.38 percent) to 2,316.74, its best level since September 2008. The broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 2.78 points (0.24 percent) to a 15-month high of 1,148.46. The market wobbled at the opening on the news that US retail sales fell unexpectedly by 0.3 percent in December, a poor sign for the critical holiday shopping season.
The report stunned analysts expecting a gain of 0.5 percent in sales, the key driver of US economic activity. Andrea Kramer at Schaeffer's Investment Research said computer chip giant Intel "paced the advancing issues amid pre-earnings optimism." Others said Intel's earnings and a release from financial giant JPMorgan Chase would provide signals on the health of the sectors and ther overall economy.
"This should give investors a good gauge on the strength of the global economic recovery and an update look at technology spending," said Fred Dickson at DA Davidson & Co. "Revenue growth will be more important than ever as investors are becoming anxious to see the reported top-line revenue growth needed to sustain an economic recovery and eventually drive employment growth and consumer spending."
After the bell, Intel reported a profit for the fourt quarter of 2.28 billion dollars, up a stunning 875 percent from a year ago and better than analyst forecasts. Revenues also topped most forecasts. Intel rose 2.48 percent to 21.48 dollars at the close. In the retail space, Target rose 1.54 percent to 50.10 dollars as it announced that it is resuming its share buyback and hinted at better results in both its retail and credit card segments.
Elsewhere, Kodak rose 2.84 percent to 5.07 dollars after filing a patent infringement suit related to digital imaging technology against Apple, down 0.58 percent at 209.43 dollars, and Research in Motion, up 1.5 percent at 66.52 dollars.
JPMorgan Chase added 0.99 percent to 44.69 dollars. Bonds gained. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond eased to 3.734 percent from 3.783 percent Wednesday and that on the 30-year bond dipped to 4.624 percent from 4.707 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.