NEW YORK —
Stocks rallied to finish mixed Thursday after spending most of the day in the red. Investors were reminded that Europe has not solved its debt crisis and that the U.S. economy is far from healed.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 94 points at its low but finished up 19.61 points at 13,145.82. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 2.26 points to close at 1,403.28, and the Nasdaq lost 9.60 points to 3,095.36.
The government released some incremental good news: The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell to the lowest since April 2008, and economic growth for the last three months of last year was in line with expectations.
But the government also said many more people than originally estimated filed unemployment claims in recent months. And economists believe growth has slowed to an annual rate of about 1.5 percent from 3 percent last quarter.
A belief that the economy is improving has driven a strong rally in stocks this year. Now, “investors are pausing to examine whether the growth is real,” said Lawrence Creatura, a Rochester, N.Y., portfolio manager at Federated Investors.
Investors also are waiting to see companies’ earnings for the first three months of the year. The earnings season traditionally kicks off with Alcoa, which reports results April 10.
“We’re in that odd period of silence,” Creatura said. “It’s like a bad Western movie where one guy turns to the other and says, ‘It’s quiet out here,’ and the other says, ‘Yeah, too quiet.’ That’s what today feels like.”
David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners in St. Louis, said he expects stocks to be volatile during earnings season. The S&P has gained as much in three months as some analysts thought it would all year.
“The stock prices got ahead of expectations,” Rolfe said, “and there’s a price to pay.”
Some of the day’s rally may have been buying ahead of the end of the first quarter today, said Kenny Polcari, managing director at ICAP Equities.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.16 percent from 2.21 percent.
European markets fell across the board. In Spain, workers took to the streets to protest spending cuts. Yields crept up for government bonds issued by Spain and Italy, a possible sign of investor concern about those countries’ debt problems.
“I think there’s a little bit of nervousness creeping in,” said Paul Simon, chief investment officer at Tactical Allocation Group in Birmingham, Mich.
