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NEW YORK (AP) — Investors are sending stocks higher in early trading, reassured by Alcoa Inc.'s earnings and some good news on the labor front.

The market appears to be shrugging off weakness in June retail sales reports.

Alcoa's $454 million second-quarter loss was smaller than expected, and markets around the world rose on hopes the aluminum maker is signaling that the worst of the recession is over.

The market also got some good news from the Labor Department, which said the number of initial jobless claims fell last week to their lowest level since early January.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 47 to 8,226. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 5 to 885, while the Nasdaq composite index is up 13 to 1,760.