U.S. Stocks Fluctuate Near 18-Month High as Jobless Claims Rise

U.S. stocks fluctuated, with benchmark indexes hovering near 18-month highs, as a jump in jobless claims and concern the market has risen too far, too fast tempered growing optimism about earnings and the economy.
Hewlett-Packard Co., Coca-Cola Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. led declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. United Parcel Service Inc. climbed 5.9 percent after the world’s largest package-delivery company raised its earnings forecast. Mariner Energy Inc. surged 39 percent after Apache Corp. agreed to buy the company.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained less than 0.1 percent to 1,211 at 10:31 a.m. in New York after the benchmark gauge for U.S. equities jumped 1.1 percent yesterday, its biggest gain in six weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 5.06 points, or 0.1 percent, to 11,118.05 today.
“Seeing companies guide higher on earnings, like UPS, is very positive but on the job claims those are numbers we don’t want to see,” said Mike Shea, a managing partner and trader at Direct Access Partners LLC in New York. “We don’t want this to be a jobless recovery and we want people to be working again because this is still a consumer-based economy.”
The S&P 500 threatened to snap a five-day rally after the Labor Department said initial jobless claims rose to 484,000 last week, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week and above the 440,000 estimated by economists in a Bloomberg survey.
RSI Climbs
The S&P 500’s relative strength index, a gauge of stock- market momentum, has been above 65 for 29 straight days, the longest stretch since 1986, according to Bloomberg data. A reading above 70 is a signal to sell for many technical analysts. The S&P 500’s RSI has been above 70 for five straight days and reached 78.34 today.