Stocks close on high note

First Posted:

The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The stock market closed out its best month since the summer, posting big gains for November even as investors worried about the strength of the holiday shopping season.
Stocks fluctuated through the day Monday, but finished modestly higher as traders ultimately were not deterred by reports that retail sales were overall uninspiring during the Thanksgiving weekend. Retailers including Macy’s Inc. and Saks Inc. fell sharply but online merchants like Amazon.com Inc. shot higher on reports of strong Internet sales.
Despite the tepid finish, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose more than 5 percent in November, their biggest monthly advance since July.
Investors have been worried that rising unemployment would make shoppers reluctant to spend during the holidays. Traders are already looking to the government’s November unemployment report, which is due Friday, for clues about how consumers will spend during December and beyond.
Benny Lorenzo, CEO of the investment bank Kaufman Bros. in New York said investors are cautious about holiday sales so far, but he also pointed to Internet retailers as one area of strength.
“Certainly in a market like this it could’ve been a lot worse for sure,” he said.