NEW YORK — An increase in regional manufacturing pushed the stock market to its third straight advance Thursday and offset concerns about lower sales at Wal-Mart.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 84 points, bringing its gains for the week to nearly 300 points. It’s the best streak for the Dow since November.
Stock futures turned lower after the closing bell when the Federal Reserve announced it was hiking the interest rate that it charges banks for emergency loans. The move doesn’t change consumer borrowing rates, but the notion that policymakers would start to reel in some of the emergency economic supports in place since 2007 spooked investors.
The Fed’s decision to increase the interest rate on emergency loans by one-quarter point to 0.75 percent pushed the dollar higher. Higher interest rates tend to raise the value of the dollar against other currencies. That can be bad for stocks by weakening demand for commodities such as oil and metals, which is a negative for industrial companies.
Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 0.6 percent. Standard & Poor’s 500 futures lost 0.8 percent, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.7 percent.
The Dow rose 83.66, or 0.8 percent, to 10,392.90, putting its gain for the week at 294 points. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 7.24, or 0.7 percent, to 1,106.75. The Nasdaq composite index rose 15.42, or 0.7 percent, to 2,241.71, its fifth straight advance.
The gain in stocks Thursday came after the Philadelphia Federal Reserve said its index of regional manufacturing rose to 17.6 in February from 15.2 in January. That follows reports that also pointed to a pickup in factory business.
The report lifted stocks of companies that process raw materials because increased manufacturing should boost sales. Greenwood Village-based Newmont Mining and glass maker Owens-Illinois each rose more than 2 percent.
Eric Mintz, assistant portfolio manager of the Eagle Mid Cap Growth Fund in St. Petersburg, Fla., said traders looked past the latest jobs report because economic reports still signal the economy is improving.
“We’re in the early phases of the recovery, and you are going to get spotty data,” he said.
