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February 15, 2013

Stocks edge higher on Wall Street

From The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Stocks edged higher in early trading on Wall Street, putting the S&P 500 in line for a seventh straight week of gains.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose one point to 1,522 as of 10:23 a.m. EST. For the week, the index is four points higher. It has risen every week so far this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 26 to 13,978. The Nasdaq composite advanced 6 to 3,204.

Burger King gained 46 cents to $16.98. The company’s fourth-quarter earnings nearly doubled after it revamped its menu.

A stock market rally that started in January has slowed in February. Investors piled into stocks at the beginning of the year after lawmakers reached a last-minute deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts. The gains continued as investors were encouraged by signs that the housing and jobs markets are recovering.

Herbalife surged $3.51, or 9 percent, to $41.78 after the billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he had accumulated a 13 percent stake in the company. The stock of the supplement company slumped last year after Pershing Square Capital Management’s William Ackman described it as a massive pyramid scheme and placed bets that it would fall.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, has risen since the beginning of the year as investors put more cash into stocks. The yield rose 1 basis point Friday to 2.01 percent. It started the year at 1.70 percent.

 

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