Stocks open higher after Alcoa, jobs report

NEW YORK -- The market appears to be shrugging off weakness in June retail sales reports.

Alcoa's $454 million second-quarter loss was smaller than expected, and markets around the world rose on hopes the aluminum maker is signaling that the worst of the recession is over.

Investors are looking to companies' earnings reports to determine how strong the economy's recovery is likely to be. A growing pessimism that the recovery might be delayed or extremely weak punctured Wall Street's big spring rally.

The market also got some good news from the Labor Department, which said the number of initial jobless claims fell last week to their lowest level since early January.

Global markets have been grinding lower over the last week after economic evidence, notably unemployment figures in the U.S. and Europe, suggested any rebound in growth could be feeble and take longer that investors expected.

Overseas Thursday, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 1.4%. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.5%, Germany's DAX index was up 1.1%, and France's CAC-40 was up 0.7%.