Keep Hope Alive

Are we seeing a glimmer of hope as this week comes to and end?

Investors could get used to this whole “optimism” thing.

For a third day, stock markets climbed higher on Thursday as Wall Street seized on some less-than-dire glimmers from the banking system, retail sales, the auto industry and the General Electric Company. In the last hour of trading, financial markets were about 3 percent higher after rising steadily all day.

Financial companies and major banks led the way, but traders said they were cheered by the breadth of the upward move. Every sector was higher, from technology companies to car companies to retailers.

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was 239.66 points or 3.4 percent higher, at 7,170.06 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 4 percent or 29.38 points, to 750.74. The Nasdaq was 3.97 percent or 54.46 points higher, at 1,426.10.

And General Motors says it won't need additional cash in March.

General Motors, which has borrowed $13.4 billion from the federal government since December to keep itself out of bankruptcy, said on Thursday that it had withdrawn a request for an additional $2 billion that it thought was needed to stay alive through the end of this month.

G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, issued a statement saying that it had told President Obama’s auto industry task force, which is reviewing the restructuring plan that the company submitted last month, that its March financing request “would not be needed at this time” because it is making more progress than expected in reducing costs.

The statement did not specify whether G.M. still expected to need the full $30 billion that it had requested.

“This development reflects the acceleration of G.M.’s companywide cost reduction efforts as well as proactive deferrals of spending previously anticipated in January and February,” the statement said. “G.M. will remain in regular contact with the presidential task force on the auto industry on the status of G.M.’s restructuring actions, its liquidity position, timing of future funding requests, and other relevant topics of mutual concern.”

Let's hope this is a trend of things to come.