US stocks opened higher and are rallying in early trading on Thursday. Near 10:30 a.m. ET, the Dow was up 30 points, the S&P 500 was up 12 points, and the Nasdaq was up 41 points. On Wednesday, stocks fell from the highs of the day and closed little changed when, for a short time, protests got chaotic in Athens, as Greece's parliamentarians prepared to vote on a new bailout deal. They voted yes to the package that unlocks funding from euro creditors, with some conditions that are harsher than those Greeks voted against – hence the dissent. And in a news conference on Thursday, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi announced that the bank is increasing its emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to Greek banks by €900 million ($977.58 million.) This would help banks closed since June 29 reopen. In economic data, initial jobless claims dropped for the first time in a month to 281,000 last week, after a spike to 297,000 in the prior period. The Philadelphia Fed's reading of manufacturing activity in the region came in at 5.7 for July, much worse than the consensus forecast of 12.0. But homebuilder sentiment jumped to the highest since November 2005, with the National Association of Homebuilders' index climbing to 60 from 59 in June. Netflix shares jumped as much as 12% to an all-time high in early trading after the company posted quarterly results above expectations Wednesday. Yesterday, Netflix shares started trading at the new adjusted share price, following the 7-for-1 split. And, we got more results from the big banks. Goldman Sachs reported earnings per share of $1.98 on revenue of $9.07 billion. But excluding legal fees, adjusted earnings per share were $4.75. Citigroup also beat forecasts, with adjusted EPS of $1.45 on revenues of $19.5 billion. SEE ALSO: The ECB just turned the funding taps back on for Greek banks Join the conversation about this story »
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