Qa'dah 14, 1431 / Oct. 22, 2010, SPA -- U.S. stocks finished slightly higher on Thursday, as investors balanced strong earnings with speculation that the Federal Government's upcoming announcement of asset-buying will not be as dramatic as anticipated. There has been growing speculation over the past month that the Fed will provide more quantitative easing, which would be the second round of large-scale asset purchases of U.S. Treasuries by the Fed as part of its effort to help in the economic recovery. However, comments from U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday suggested that the Fed's action will not be as large as expected, as the dollar strengthened and the stock market's early rally slowed. In other economic news, the U.S. government's weekly jobless claims report showed that the number of American filing for first-time unemployment insurance was lower than expected, with 452,000 claims filed in the week ending on October 16. The Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators rose 0.3 percent in September, just as economists expected, and up from a 0.1 percent increase in August. The U.S. dollar rose against the euro and the yen. Light sweet crude oil for December delivery fell $1.98 to $80.56 a barrel. Gold futures fell $18.60 to $1,325.60 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 38.6, or 0.4 percent, to 11,146.57. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.09, or 0.2 percent, to 1,180.26. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 2.28, or 0.1 percent, to 2,459.67.
