Dow Chalks Up Biggest Gain in a Month on Hopes

3M Co., the maker of Post-It Notes, and Visa Inc., the world’s largest payments network, rose for the time being 2 percent amid better-than-estimated revenues. PulteGroup Inc., the nation’s largest homebuilder by revenue, surged 18 percent on a jump in orders. Sprint Nextel Corp. and MetroPCS Communications Inc. rallied more than 20 percent afterwards their results. Facebook Inc. fell 10 percent at 4:47 p.m. New York time afterwards posting a narrower profit margin as sales and marketing costs surged.

Visa rose 3.7 percent to $126.77. It has benefited from a consumer shift from cash to electronic payments that shows no signs of abating, during parrying threats to its business model.

Surge in telephone shares

Better-than-estimated earnings as well drove a surge in telephone shares. The group rose the most among 10 industries in the S&P 500 Thursday, adding 3 percent.

MetroPCS Communications soared 37 percent, the most since it went public in 2007, to $8.59. The pay-as-you-go wireless carrier reported second-quarter revenues that beat estimates amid a decrease in promotional costs.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which helps businesses deliver data more quickly over the Internet, soared 24 percent to $35.04. The company reported profit and revenue that beat estimates, benefiting from the growth of cloud computing.

Western Digital Corp. jumped 21 percent, the most since 2002, to $39.27. The maker of disk drives and networking products reported fiscal fourth-quarter sales and profit that topped analysts’ estimates.

CBS Corp. jumped 4.9 percent to $32.63. The owner of the most-watched U.S. television network will raise its quarterly dividend 20 percent to 12 cents and expand a stock buyback program to as much as $4.7 billion.

Stocks rose even as data showed that a slump in June orders for equipment signals business investment may cool in the second half of the year. Jobless claims fell more than forecast last week, which may have resulted from difficulty adjusting data for seasonal shutdowns of auto factories.

"Ultimately, Facebook is just an advertising platform, when all is said and done advertisers go where people’s eyeballs are," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles. Based on the number of users Facebook has amassed, "they’ve built the third-largest country; it just happens to live on the Internet."

Zynga Inc. plunged 37 percent to $3.18. The biggest developer of games played on Facebook’s social network missed analysts’ second-quarter revenue and profit estimates.

Anyone buying Apple Inc.’s stock afterwards last quarter’s sales shortfall at the iPhone maker has history on their side, according to Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray Cos. analyst.

A study shows how Apple performed afterwards four previously cases of disappointing quarterly revenue, as tracked by Munster. They occurred in fiscal 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2011, with iPhone sales trailing estimates in the latter case. Six months later, the shares were 23 percent higher on average.

In-vogue stock again in the near future

"It’s going to be an in-vogue stock again in the near future," Munster said yesterday in a Bloomberg Radio interview. He cited the pending introduction of the straightway iPhone model, known as the iPhone 5, which he expects in October. "We’re going to see a significant rebound in the December quarter, and that’s probably an understatement," he said.