Stocks show modest rise based on favorable reports

NEW YORK – Stocks on Wall Street rose modestly Thursday as data from the United States and abroad cast a more favorable light on the global economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 index posted their first gain in three days.

“The economic news was fairly decent, but there’s a continual overhang about earnings and growth going forward,” said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Banyan Partners in New York.

The Dow rose 26.34 points, or 0.2 percent, to end at 13,103.68.

Procter & Gamble Co. was the top gainer in the Dow, with its shares rallying 2.9 percent after the consumer-products company reported results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 that exceeded estimates.

The S&P 500 added 4.22 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,412.97.

Health insurer Aetna Inc.’s results topped expectations, along with security-software maker Symantec Corp., which projected sales that surpassed Wall Street analysts’ estimates.

The Nasdaq composite rose 4.42 points, or 0.2 percent, to end at 2,986.12.

McDonald’s to start selling ground coffee in Canada

NEW YORK – McDonald’s will start selling bags of ground coffee at its restaurants in Canada next month, a move that could spread to other regions around the world if successful.

The world’s biggest hamburger chain said the ground coffee will be available in the majority of its 1,400 stores by Nov. 8. The packages will weigh about 340 grams (about 12 ounces) and cost about 7 Canadian dollars ($7.04).

A representative at the company’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., was not immediately available to say whether there were any plans to sell ground coffee in the United States. But the company filed a trademark for “McCafe” ground and whole bean coffee here last month.

John Betts, president of McDonald’s Canada, also noted in an interview that McDonald’s has a history of taking hit products from specific regions and expanding them globally.

The company’s McCafe specialty coffees were first offered in Australia in 1993, then worked their way through Europe before landing in the United States.

– From news service reports