NEW YORK: US stock markets were modestly up early Thursday, with US unemployment data and a successful Spanish debt sale giving little direction to trade.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 11.57 points (0.09 percent) to 13,044.32 after the first hour of trade.
The broader S&P 500 was up 2.07 (0.15 percent) to 1,387.21, while the Nasdaq was up 21.29 (0.70 percent) to 3,052.74.
"A batch of better-than-expected earnings from a broad range of industry bellwethers had initially bolstered buying interest, but confidence was undermined when Europe's major bourses moved lower in response to a drop by the euro," said analysts at Briefing.com.
Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Verizon were all on the earnings block early Thursday.
Travelers was the Dow's biggest earner, up 3.4 percent. Verizon, which posted solid revenue thanks to iPhone business, was up 1.6 percent.
Walt Disney was down a little over one percent.
Spain raised around 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in an issue of two- and 10-year bonds, beating its own target of 1.5-2.5 billion euros.
The rate for the 10-year issue was not as high as some had feared, failing to breach the psychologically important 6.0-percent level, and demand outstripped supply by more than two-to-one.
But Madrid's IBEX-35 leading stock index fell below 7,000 points for the first time in three years after the auction.
Meanwhile, in the United States new claims for unemployment benefits inched lower last week.
The Labor Department reported 386,000 initial jobless claims were filed in the week ended April 14, a decrease of 2,000 from the prior week.
US bond prices rose slightly. The yield on 10 year bonds fell 0.023 points to 1.959 percent while the 30 year was basically unchanged at 3.11.
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.
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