Wall Street Rallies on Jobs, Retails Sales Data

Investors reacted favorably to Feb. 13 news of an unexpected increase in first-time jobless claims for the previous week, as well as a decline in January retail sales sending stocks on a broad rally for most of the day’s trading activity.

The previous day, St. Louis Fed Reserve President James Bullard’s indicated that a progressively improving US economy would mean a normalization of the Central Bank’s monetary politics, which had somewhat rattled investors.

The Final Tally

?     Standard & Poor’s 500: +0.58 percent to 1,829.83

?     Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.40 percent to 16,027.59

?     Nasdaq: +0.94 to 4,240.67

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On the S&P 500

Leading US cable service provider Comcast Corporation (CMCSA) shed almost 4 percent on the day, after the company announced a $45 billion all-stock purchase of it’s second-place rival Time Warner Cable (TWC) . Shares for TWC went the other direction, gaining about 7 percent by the closing bell. Telecommunications providers Sprint Nextel (S) and AT&T (T) seem to have been caught in the updraft on gains of 4 and 1.5 percent respectively.

One of the day’s worst performances was posted by Whole Foods Market (WFM) , who saw shares take a 7.5 percent dive after releasing disappointing guidance for 2014.

On the Dow

A strong day on the Dow saw 8 components in the red, most of them negligibly so with the exception of Cisco Systems (CSCO) , off over 3.5 percent after releasing its own underwhelming quarterly earnings report. Meanwhile, Unitedhealth Group (UNH) , Boeing (BA) and Nike (NKE) were on the winning-most end of the benchmark index, each up over 1 percent.

On the Nasdaq

Tech stocks were the big story on the Nasdaq exchange, with a number of companies scoring big gains, undeterred by the trouble over at Cisco Systems. Facebook (FB) jumped some 4 percent, while semiconductor company Applied Materials (AMAT) was up nearly 6 percent. Other hardware companies also trading higher were NVIDIA (NVDA) , up 2.25 percent, Intel (INTC) up 0.50 percent, Plug Power Inc. (PLUG) , up nearly 5 percent, and Himax Technologies (HIMX) , up nearly 2 percent. Leading device maker Apple (AAPL) added 1.33 percent ahead of the closing bell.