Stocks turned higher Thursday as investors focused on a drop in weekly unemployment claims and stronger-than-expected results from Ford Motor Co. rather than weak housing figures and cautious comments from some retailers. The Dow Jones industrials at times rose more than 100 points.

Sellers held sway early in the session after the government reported sales of new homes fell last month to the lowest level since 1991. While the decline was expected, it appeared to stir concerns that the hangover from the housing bubble would remain an intractable obstacle for the economy.

The back-and-forth trading wasn’t surprising as investors tried to square their concerns about forecasts from Amazon.com Inc. and Starbucks Corp. with the drop in weekly unemployment claims and the results from Ford.

Some of the outlooks issued by companies in recent days have underscored a worrisome notion that the economy might enter a prolonged period of sluggishness, while others signaled for some investors that Wall Street has been overly dour in its assessment of the business climate.

The dollar rose against other major currencies, helping to lower commodities prices and lending support to a notion that the economy could be on the mend.

John Merrill, chief investment officer at Tanglewood Capital Management in Houston, said investors are seeing confirmation of many of the economic themes that have played out in recent months, with weakness in the financial, homebuilding and automotive sectors and relative strength elsewhere.

“The earnings picture is not so bleak as people though it was going to be,” he said. “There’s been so much talk of the spillover from the credit crunch and homebuilding into the real economy and that just doesn’t seem to have happened.”

In midday trading, the Dow rose 105.84, or 0.83 percent, to 12,869.06.

Broader stock indicators also showed gains. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 8.84, or 0.64 percent, to 1,388.77, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 23.89, or 0.99 percent, to 2,429.10.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 574 million shares.

Bond prices fell following the drop in unemployment claims. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.82 percent from 3.74 percent late Wednesday.

Light, sweet crude fell $1.15 to $117.15 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while gold prices fell.

The Labor Department’s report that claims for unemployment benefits declined by 33,000 last week to 342,000 came as a surprise after economists predicted claims would rise by 3,000. The notion that unemployment might be contained appeared to cap some concern about the economy. With consumer spending accounting for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, a rise in unemployment could dent people’s willingness to reach into their wallets.

While investors appeared pleased by the employment report, not all the day’s economic news was welcome. The Commerce Department said new home sales fell by 8.5 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units _ the slowest pace since October 1991. Also, the median price of a new home showed the sharpest year-over-year decline in nearly four decades.

Moreover, orders to factories for durable goods _ big-ticket items like refrigerators, cars and computers _ fell for a third straight month in March. This marks the longest sustained pullback since the 2001 recession.

Amazon had worried investors over the strength of its profit margins, while Starbucks warned that its second-quarter profit will likely fall short of Wall Street’s expectations because of weak consumer spending.

Their forecasts, delivered after the closing bell Wednesday, touched off unease over the prospects for the consumer. Amazon fell $2.53, or 3.1 percent, to $78.47, while Starbucks dropped $1.92, or 11 percent, to $15.93.

However, Ford reported a $100 million profit in the first quarter after strong results from Europe and South America helped make up for a slower U.S. economy. It was the first profitable quarter for the No. 2 U.S.-based automaker since the second quarter of 2007. Ford rose $1.10, or 15 percent, to $8.62.

3M Co. _ the maker of Scotch tape and Post-It notes _ fell $1.93, or 2.4 percent, to $78.70 after reporting its first-quarter profit fell 28 percent from a year earlier, which benefited from a gain on the sale of one of its branded pharmaceutical business in Europe.

Motorola Inc. slid 37 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $9.18 after reporting that its first-quarter loss widened following a 39 percent decline in its mobile business.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 6.51, or 0.92 percent, to 714.62.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 0.28 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.54 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.39 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.31 percent.

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