Stocks rally on news Greece deal appeared to be nearing

Stocks staged an afternoon-long rally and closed higher Wednesday as Greece continued to work toward the cost-cutting deal it needs to keep from defaulting on its national debt.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 5.75 points to close at 12,883.95 after falling as much as 60 points at midday.

It was the Dow’s highest close since May 19, 2008, the last time it finished above 13,000.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged up 2.91 points to 1,346.96.

The Nasdaq composite rose 11.78 points to 2,915.86, its highest close since December 2000.

Stock trading has been relatively quiet this week after a slow but steady rise since the beginning of the year.

The Dow has added 2 percent in February and is up 5.5 percent for the year.

Rick Fier, vice president of stock trading at Conifer Securities in New York, said he wasn’t that worried that the market’s advance has slowed this week.

The S&P 500 is still up 7.3 percent for the year, and has fallen on only eight days in 2012.

Fier said he is concerned that the batch of earnings reports from U.S. companies for the last three months of last year “hasn’t been as robust” as previous quarters.

Revenue growth has slowed even though profits have been strong, he said.

Groupon fourth-quarter revenue up, but profits drop

Online deals site Groupon Inc., reporting for the first time as a public company, said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter revenue rose sharply, but it lost money, and its shares fell sharply after hours.

Groupon’s net loss totaled $42.7 million, or 8 cents per share, for the final three months of 2011.

A year earlier, as a private company, it booked a larger loss of $378.6 million, which would have amounted to $1.08 per share.

The company said its adjusted loss was 2 cents per share in the latest quarter, while analysts were expecting an adjusted profit of 3 cents per share, according to FactSet.

Groupon said an unusually high international tax rate hurt the quarter’s adjusted results.

Its stock fell $2.29, or 9.3 percent, to $22.29 in after-hours trading.

Toyota moving Highlander production to Indianapolis

Toyota says it will expand its factory in Princeton, Ind., and add 400 jobs so it can build more Highlander SUVs.

The hiring and expansion will come next year.

Toyota says it will invest $400 million in the factory to build 50,000 more Highlanders per year. The plant built more than 101,000 Highlanders last year. The company says it plans to stop making Highlanders in Japan and move that production to Indiana.

After the changes, Toyota will be able to build about 255,000 Highlanders a year in Princeton and in China.

The Princeton plant in southern Indiana now employs nearly 4,000 people who make Sienna minivans and the Highlander and Sequoia SUVs.

Toyota sold more than 101,000 Highlanders in the U.S. last year, up nearly 10 percent from 2010.

Corporate espionage trial seen sending strong message

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald says a trial in Chicago sends a strong message to would-be corporate thieves even though a judge acquitted a Chinese-born American of the more serious charge of espionage.

Fitzgerald spoke to reporters Wednesday after a judge convicted Hanjuan Jin of stealing secrets from Motorola Inc.

He acquitted her of economic espionage, saying the evidence was insufficient.

Fitzgerald says prosecutors always hope for convictions on all counts. But he says the mixed verdict still conveys that there’s a heavy price to pay.

He says he’d be happy if China itself “took a lesson” from Jin’s conviction. But he adds the trial’s outcome should foremost give pause to individuals thinking of pilfering company secrets. Jin still faces up to 30 years in prison on her convictions.

– From news service reports