Bank stocks push indexes higher

NEW YORK – JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other banks drove stock indexes higher Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average rose to its highest level in two and a half years.

JPMorgan rose 1 percent after reporting that its income soared 47 percent in the fourth quarter. The bank set aside less money to cover bad loans and said it expected to get permission from the Federal Reserve to raise its dividend.

Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp. and other large banks also rose on hopes that they too would be able to raise dividends. Banks slashed their dividends during the financial crisis to conserve cash. Investors have been urging banks to raise their dividends now that many of them are making money again.

Gains were spread across the market. Consumer staples companies were the only one of the 10 company groups that make up the S&P 500 index to fall. Financial companies gained the most, 1.7 percent.

The Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the largest increase since June 2009. However, 80 percent of the increase was due to higher gas prices, meaning that the risk of widespread inflation remains low.

“Prices of oil, corn and wheat are all way up,” said Tom di Galoma, head of fixed-income trading at Guggenheim Partners in New York. “But at the end of the day, if the unemployment rate is at 9.4 percent, there’s not enough demand to drive inflation higher. People just aren’t spending that much.”

Without food and energy costs, consumer prices increased only 0.1 percent for the second straight month. This “core” inflation rate has gained just 0.8 percent in the past year.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said retail sales rose in December for the sixth month in a row, driven by gains in automobile and furniture sales.