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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

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

 


KUALA LUMPUR (AFP)--Malaysia has brushed off a warning by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation about a resurgence of the deadly bird flu virus and a new mutant strain.



Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai was quoted in the New Straits Times Wednesday as saying that the country remained vigilant about the H5N1 virus but no new cases had been reported.



"The public should not worry. We will let them know about the latest developments on the virus," he was quoted as saying.



An aide confirmed his comments.



Liow said the World Health Organisation hadn't confirmed the FAO's warning. The WHO in a release on its website Tuesday said it recognized the virus' evolution in February but that it was "not considered unusual."



"Based on available information, this evolution of the H5N1 virus poses no increased risk to public health," it said.



The FAO said Monday that a virus "able to sidestep the defenses provided by existing vaccines" had appeared in China and Vietnam and could spread to Malaysia and other countries.



The Rome-based organization also warned that there could be a "major resurgence" of the bird flu disease, calling for a heightened readiness and surveillance.



The virus developed into a pandemic in 2009. The U.N.'s World Health Organisation says 565 people have been infected since the deadly H5N1 strain first appeared and 331 of them have died as a result.



Malaysia experienced bird flu outbreaks between 2004 and 2007 but no human cases of avian flu were reported.

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