Wall Street rose for the third straight day Thursday, as investors digested reports on retail sales and General Electric climbed strongly.

The US Commerce Department says that retail sales dropped 0.1% in February, which was better than the 0.5% drop expected by economists. Still, it's the seventh slide in eight months.

However, the US Labor Department reported first-time claims for unemployment insurance increased to 654,000 from the previous week's figure of 639,000, above analysts' expectations.

On corporate news, GE shares rose more than 10%, as GE said the loss of the top credit rating at Standard & Poor's won't hurt business. Standard & Poor's lowered GE's top rating one notch because of problems at the conglomerate's lending arm, but S&P decided not to put GE on watch for another downgrade.

The Dow Jones rose 71.20 to 7001.60. Broader indexes also advanced. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 8.00 to 725.36; and the Nasdaq climbed 9.10 to 1,380.74.

(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2009)