US Stocks Extend Winning Streak To Close Out Tough August; DJIA Rises 53.58

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- U.S. stocks advanced Wednesday, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average back into positive territory for 2011 and capping a four-day winning streak to close a difficult August.

The blue-chip Dow finished with a gain of 53.58 points, or 0.46%, at 11613.53, the seventh rise in eight days. The blue-chip measure was led by Alcoa, which gained 3.56%. The aluminum producer's stock and others in the sector got a boost after Goldman Sachs analysts said they expect demand for metals to remain "fairly healthy," driven by emerging markets.

AT&T led blue-chip decliners, shedding 3.85% after the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit that seeks to block AT&T's proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile. The suit said the combination of the second- and fourth-largest U.S. cellphone companies would hurt competition and likely raise prices. Major stock indexes turned negative temporarily midsession as investors digested the suit.

"It underscores that we live in a fairly heavily regulated business environment," said Karl Mills, president and chief investment officer at Jurika Mills & Keifer. "For the economy to go back into growth mode and create jobs, you need to blow wind in its sails, rather than wind in its face."

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index gained 5.97 points, or 0.49%, to 1218.89, led by financial and utility stocks. The Nasdaq Composite eked out a rise of 3.35 points, or 0.13%, to 2579.46.

Three batches of economic data helped set a positive tone for Wednesday's session. A report by Automatic Data Processing Inc. showed a gain in private-sector hiring this month, while a reading on weak Chicago-area manufacturing managed to beat expectations. A third batch of data showed U.S. factory orders for July rose more than economists had forecast.

Market participants said the figures tempered worries of a notably worsened economy, particularly on jobs, ahead of Friday's key non-farm payrolls report.

"It's good enough to allow the consumer to keep on nibbling away at retail sales," said Michael Shaoul, chief executive of brokerage Oscar Gruss & Son. "You don't need anything better than modest employment growth. You just need it not to be falling apart."

Verizon Communications was one of the Dow's weakest stocks, shedding 0.4% in the wake of the AT&T suit. Sprint Nextel Corp. was one of the top performers in the S&P 500, jumping 5.9%.

The stock market was wracked by a variety of economic-slowdown and government-debt worries during August. Even after the four-day winning streak, the blue-chip Dow shed nearly 530 points for the month.

-By Brendan Conway, Dow Jones Newswires; (212) 416-2670; brendan.conway@dowjones.com