U.S. Stocks Open Higher In Light Pre-holiday Trade

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks opened higher in light pre-holiday trading Wednesday, gaining ground as data on consumer spending and durable goods for November came in better than expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 38 points, good enough for a 0.5% advance to 8,456, with 26 of its 30 components trading higher.

Shares of General Motors Corp. , hit hard this week, led the blue-chip gains, up 6%.

Automotive rival Toyota Motor Corp. said that its domestic production dropped 27.2% in November from a year earlier to 288,138 vehicles, the fourth straight monthly decrease.

Shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. added 0.7%. The world's largest retailer said late Tuesday it will settle 63 wage-and-hour class-action lawsuits against the company, some of which have been pending over the last several years.

The world's largest retailer said it will pay out a settlement of $352 million to $640 million, and use "various electronic systems and other measures" to ensure compliance with applicable wage laws. Wal-Mart said it will take a after-tax charge of about 6 cents a share against results for the company's fourth quarter.

The S&P 500 rose 1 point, or 0.2%, to 864, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4 points, or 0.1%, to 1,519.

Among tech shares, Micron Technology rose 6%.

Late Tuesday, the company reported a wider first-quarter net loss of $706 million, or 91 cents a share, as revenue slipped to $1.4 billion from $1.54 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Adjusted net loss was 72 cents a share. Analysts had expected the company to report a loss of 45 cents a share on revenue of $1.32 billion, according to a consensus survey by Thomson Reuters.

Also higher, shares of Starbucks Corp. rose 1%.

It reportedly will not guarantee a matching company contribution for employees' 401(k) plans in 2009 as a cost-savings measure. Starbucks told employees it will switch to a "fully discretionary match" from a "fixed employer match" starting Jan. 1, meaning the company can decide whether to match contributions into the retirement plan.

Full plate of data on U.S. economy

A government report showed consumer spending declined 0.6% in November, though economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected slippage of 0.7%.

Separately, durable-goods orders fell 1% last month, less than the 3% drop forecast. A measure of consumer inflation excluding energy and food prices was flat in November, as predicted.

Meanwhile, jobless claims for unemployment benefits rose 30,000 to a seasonally adjusted 586,000 in the week ended Dec. 20, the highest since 1982.

And with mortgage rates approaching record lows, the volume of applications filed for mortgages jumped a seasonally adjusted 48% last week compared with the prior week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The NYSE trading floor will close at 1 p.m. Eastern, in advance of the Christmas holiday.

In the energy markets, light sweet crude-oil futures fell 78 cents to $38.20 a barrel. In currency markets, the euro gained 0.4% to trade at $1.3980.

Asian markets ended mostly lower on Wednesday, while European shares were also firmly in the red.

In recent days, Santa Claus has been clearly absent from the equities market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down a collective 500 points since its Dec. 16 close of 8,924.

U.S. stocks declined on Tuesday for a second session this week, with economic reports illustrating the economy's decline and ongoing trouble in the housing market.

The Dow industrials finished Tuesday's trading at 8,419.49, off 100.28 points, or 1.2%. The S&P 500 shed 8.48 points, or 1%, to stand at 863.15, while the Nasdaq Composite lapsed 10.81 points, or 0.7%, to 1,521.54.

By Nick Godt