Large Stock Focus: Citi, Financials Rise; Ford Gains on Sales
U.S. stocks surged, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 152.68 points as traders focused on the bright side of manufacturing data and auto-sales reports and ignored a worrisome labor-market survey.</br></br>Stock-market bulls saw signs the bear market and the economic and financial crises have reached their lowest ebb. A measure of pending-home sales ticked up in February, and the manufacturing survey showed improvement in March from February.</br></br>General Motors shed a penny to close at $1.93. Shares of the auto maker pared losses after its executives suggested on Wednesday that U.S. industry sales had reached their lowest level despite a decline of 45% for GM's sales in March from a year earlier. Ford Motor rose 11 cents, or 4.2%, to 2.74 as new incentives drove March sales higher than February levels. Ford sales fell 41% in March, topping analysts' expectations.</br></br>American depositary shares of Toyota Motor rose 4.60, or 7.3%, to 67.90 after the Japanese auto maker said it saw signs of "optimism" in U.S. sales trends even as its March sales fell 39%.</br></br>Phil Roth, chief technical market analyst at Miller Tabak, isn't reading too much into data on home sales, consumer spending or manufacturing that are better than dire expectations. "That doesn't tell you very much," Mr. Roth said. "In a recession, you're going to have months not as bad as the previous month."