UNITED States stocks rose for a third week last week after a better-than-forecast jobs report and the US$23 billion takeover of Wm. Wrigley Jr Co pushed the market to its longest streak of gains in seven months.
Technology, consumer and telephone stocks led the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to a four-month high, while raw material and energy producers declined as the US dollar climbed. Wrigley had the steepest gain in more than two decades after Mars Inc, with financing by Warren Buffett, agreed to buy the world's biggest maker of chewing gum.
"The market is turning around here," Marc Pado, US market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald LP in Reno, Nevada, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "This is a sustainable move that will take us to the 2007 highs before the end of the year."
The S&P 500 rose 1.2 percent to 1,413.90 last week. The measure has gained 6.1 percent in the past three weeks, paring its 2008 decline to 3.7 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 1.3 percent to finish at 13,058.20.
The market rallied last Friday after the Labor Department said the US jobless rate dropped to 5 percent from 5.1 percent in April. Payrolls shrank by 20,000 workers. Economists forecast a fall of 75,000. The jobs report signaled the economic slowdown may be milder than the 2001 recession.
Telephone firms in the S&P 500 rose 4.8 percent.
Verizon Communications Inc, the second-largest US phone firm, said first-quarter profit rose 9.8 percent as mobile-phone users spent more on text messages and wireless Internet browsing. Verizon shares rose 6.9 percent to US$39.59 last week.
AT&T Inc, the nation's biggest telco gained 4 percent to US$40.13.
Consumer stocks gained, led by Office Depot Inc. The world's second-largest office-supplies retailer said first-quarter profit fell less than analysts estimated after selling more profitable store-brand items.
Symantec Corp, the world's biggest security software maker, disclosed that profit tripled and forecast earnings that beat analysts' estimates on sales abroad.