The Dubai Financial Market (DFM)’s General Index advanced to reach at 2,156.34 levels during the first couples of hours trading on Wednesday 08th May 2013, adding 6.61 points or 0.31 percent. Real Estate and Investment & Financial Services sectors appeared at top during this time span, showing a growth of 0.8 percent each. Transportation was the other significant advancer with 0.77 percent.  Advancers outnumbered the decliners with a margin of 15 to 9.  United Foods Company (UFC) topped the chart of gainers’, surging 10.09 percent.  Oman Insurance Company (OIC) led the chart of losers’, dropping 9.92 percent.  Gulf Finance House (GFH) with more than 75.7 million shares dominated the share trading activity.

U.S. stocks advanced, putting the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index on track for its fourth straight week of gains, as gauges for leading indicators and consumer sentiment advanced more than estimated. Northrop Grumman Corp. climbed 3.5 percent after increasing its share-buyback program by $4 billion. Boeing Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. added more than 1.9 percent to pace gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (INDU) J.C. Penney Co. slid 2.5 percent after its first-quarter loss widened.The S&P 500 (SPX) rose 0.5 percent to 1,658.15 at 1:11 p.m. in New York. The equity benchmark is heading for a 1.5 percent weekly gain. The Dow advanced 52.95 points, or 0.4 percent, to 15,286.17. “You’ve got the leading indicators helping the market today,” Thomas Nyheim, a Wilmington, Delaware-based fund manager for Christiana Trust, which oversees about $16 billion, said in a phone interview. “We’re seeing good signs for the economy, you’re getting this grinding, slow growth that just keeps coming out.” The index of U.S. leading indicators climbed in April, a rebound from March that suggests the world’s largest economy may be poised for further expansion. The Conference Board’s gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months climbed 0.6 percent last month after falling a revised 0.2 percent in March that was steeper than previously reported, the New York-based group said today.Consumer Sentiment Consumer confidence rose in May to the highest level in almost six years as an advancing stock market and cheaper gas prices helped lift Americans’ outlook on the economy. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 83.7 in May from 76.4 the prior month, a report today showed. The U.S. bull market has entered its fifth year. The S&P 500 has surged 145 percent from a 12-year low in 2009, driven by better-than-estimated corporate earnings and three rounds of bond purchases from the Federal Reserve. The rally pushed 193 stocks in the S&P 500, or 39 percent of the gauge, to their highest levels in at least 52 weeks on May 15, the most in Bloomberg data going back to 1993. About 90 percent of stocks in the benchmark index traded above their average prices from the past 50 days as of yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, approaching the two-year high of 93 percent reached January. Options contracts on stocks, exchange-traded funds and indexes expire today, leading investors to adjust their holdings of some securities. Trading of S&P 500 stocks was in line with than the 30-day average at this time of day.