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NEW YORK: US stocks closed higher Thursday but failed to lock in early strong gains helped by positive jobs data and a key ruling for the pending Greek debt writeoff that had boosted the Dow back above the 13,000 line.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 28.23 points (0.22 percent) to 12,980.30.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 8.41 points (0.62 percent) to 1,374.09, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 22.08 points (0.74 percent) to 2,988.97.
The gains followed Europe's markets upward, with investors on both sides of the Atlantic encouraged by a committee's crucial ruling that Greece was not in default on its bonds in the 107 billion euro ($142 billion) writeoff deal.
A default ruling would have triggered the payment of credit default swaps, insurance on the debt, and that could have tanked the entire 237 billion euro second bailout deal for Athens.
Also helping was a report that initial US jobless claims -- a sign of the pace of layoffs -- continued to slow.
"Along with other labour market data, the broader improvement in the labour market is becoming more convincing," said Troy Davig at Barclays.
Leading a jump in financial stocks, Goldman Sachs zoomed up 5.2 percent after announcing it was buying, for an unreported sum, the Bermuda reinsurance firms Ariel Holdings.
Bank of America was up 1.9 percent, Morgan Stanley 3.5 percent, and JPMorgan Chase 2.9 percent.
Shares in clothing retailer Gap surged 7.2 percent after reporting a four percent rise in sales in February, against analyst expectations of a fall.
On the Nasdaq, Wynn Resorts jumped 3.0 percent after Macau gaming regulators said casino revenues in the gambling on China's southern coast, where Wynn has a major operation, were up 22 percent in February.
Auto companies also picked up gains after reporting solid sales for February despite rising gas prices: GM rose 1.7 percent and Ford 2.3 percent.
Bond prices weakened. The yield on the 10-year Treasury increased to 2.04 percent from 1.98 percent on Wednesday, while the 30-year yield climbed to 3.16 percent from 3.09 percent.
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
-AFP/ac
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