Markets close quietly, await jobs report

Investors coasted Thursday leaving stocks unchanged while they looked ahead to a major jobs report. U.S. government bonds hardly moved, and neither did European stocks.

U.S. stocks rose slightly Thursday morning after the Labor Department said the four-week average of unemployment claims fell to 375,750, the lowest since June 2008 and enough to suggest a steadily improving job market.

The more important numbers come Friday, when the government releases the number of jobs created in January and the unemployment rate. In December the country added 200,000 jobs, and the rate was 8.5 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average traded between a gain of 25 points and a loss of 40. It closed down 11.05 points, or 0.09 percent, at 12,705.41. Since the beginning of 2011, the Dow has traded in a narrower range only 25 times. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.45, or 0.11 percent, to 1,325.54. The Nasdaq composite rose 11.41 points, or 0.41 percent, to 2,859.68.

Bond traders stayed on the sidelines, too. The price of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 6.2 cents for every $100 invested, and the yield inched down to 1.82 percent from 1.83 percent Wednesday.