WASHINGTON — Faint but welcome signs of optimism emerged Thursday from the most troubled corners of the economy — the banking system, the automakers and cash-desperate stores — and helped push the stock market to its best three-day run in four months.
General Motors, weathering the worst auto-sales slump in a generation, said it had told the Obama administration that it would not need a $2 billion government loan for this month after all because its cost-cutting plan was taking hold.
Bank of America chief executive Kenneth Lewis said he did not expect his company to need additional financial help from the government. Although banks are under pressure, he said, they are not in “nearly as dire shape as some would have us believe.”
And the government reported that retail sales, excluding autos, fell just 0.1 percent in February, far less than analysts were expecting. The Commerce Department also revised January’s figures to a gain of 1.8 percent, the best in three years.
The combination drove the Dow Jones industrial average up nearly 240 points to 7,170, its first close over 7,000 this month.
But there was fresh evidence, too, that the economy is far from turning a corner. More unemployed Americans are chasing a dwindling supply of jobs, pushing the number receiving jobless benefits to record heights.
That total has hit 5.3 million, the Labor Department said, the most since records began in 1967. An additional 1.4 million people are receiving up to 33 weeks of extended unemployment aid, beyond the typical 26 weeks.
And the Federal Reserve said the net worth of American households fell by a record 9 percent in the fourth quarter.
