Stocks Rebound ahead of Jobs Data

U.S. stocks rose on Thursday, after hitting a key technical level in volatile trading a day before the release of the U.S. jobs report. After falling as much as 116.37 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 80.03 points, or 0.53%, to end at 15,040.62. The S&P 500 index gained 13.66 points, or 0.85%, to 1,622.56 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 22.57 points, or 0.66%, to 3,424.05.

Major tech companies including Apple Inc, Google and Facebook Inc on Thursday said they do not provide any government agency with “direct access” to their servers, contradicting a Washington Post report that they have granted such access
under a classified data collection program.

The Obama administration on Thursday defended its collection of the telephone records of millions of Americans as part of  U.S. counterterrorism efforts, re-igniting a fierce debate over privacy even as it called the program critical to warding
off an attack.

AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Thursday it expects to report net wireless subscriber additions of about 500,000 for the second quarter, an improvement on its disappointing first quarter. For the first quarter AT&T added 296,000 net subscribers,  including 365,000 new subscribers using tablet computers and a net loss of 69,000 higher-value phone subscribers.