Signs of a sluggish economic recovery sent government bond yields to their lowest level in a year Thursday. But strong earnings and a plea to push Microsoft’s chief executive aside helped push stocks higher.
Microsoft Corp. rose 2 percent after well-known hedge-fund manager David Einhorn called for the tech giant’s board to replace CEO Steve Ballmer.
Einhorn was quoted as saying at a conference late Wednesday that Ballmer’s management was keeping the company’s stock down.
Stocks reversed early losses and bond yields remained near their lowest level in a year after two reports suggested that the U.S. jobs market is recovering more slowly than economists anticipated.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.10 points to close at 12,402.76. It was the second day of gains for the Dow after three days of losses driven by new concerns about Greece’s debt crisis.
Tiffany & Co. rose 8 percent, the most of any stock in the S&P 500 index, after the company said its income rose 25 percent on higher revenue across all regions. The results easily beat analysts’ expectations. The jewelry maker also raised its forecast for the year above current Wall Street estimates.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 5.22, or 0.4 percent, to 1,325.69. The Nasdaq composite rose 21.54, or 0.8 percent, to 2,782.92.
In a revised look at economic growth, the government reported that the U.S. economy grew 1.8 percent in the January-March quarter. Economists expected an upward revision to 2.2 percent. Gasoline prices that reached $4 a gallon and sharp cutbacks in government spending hindered growth.
More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, the first increase in three weeks. The number of people seeking benefits rose by 10,000 to 424,000. Analysts had expected a drop.
Employers stepped up hiring this spring, but some economists worry that rising applications for unemployment benefits suggest that the hiring is uneven.
