Markets rise on report

Wall Street ended a volatile and unusual week on a bullish note Friday, with the Dow Jones industrials gaining more than 146 points on the strength of a positive job creation report and a sharp drop in oil prices.

The move higher capped a remarkable week on Wall Street, which saw fear of rising oil prices replaced by a surprising resolve in the wake of the terror attacks in London.

“I think the shock of $60 oil has worn off,” said Russ Koesterich, senior portfolio manager at Barclays Global Investments in San Francisco. “It’s also encouraging that you’ve had resiliency in the face of both terrorism and oil prices.”

¢ Coming Sunday: Stocks, mutual funds in review for the second quarter.

Economy

Borrowing rate drops

Consumers, showing some caution about piling up new debt, reduced their borrowing in May for the first time in 18 months, the Federal Reserve reported Friday.

Consumers cut their borrowing by $3 billion in May from the previous month, a drop of 1.7 percent on an annualized basis. That marked the first decline since November 2003.

The decline in new debt in May reflected a pullback in demand for nonrevolving credit, which includes loans for cars, vacation and education. That type of borrowing fell by $3.7 billion in May from the previous month, or at a 3.4 percent annual rate.

The Fed’s report does not include home mortgages or popular home-equity loans.

Demand for revolving credit – mostly credit cards – rose in May, after falling in both March and April.

Finance

H&R Block to miss annual report deadline

H&R Block announced Friday that it would miss the deadline to file its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission because it needs more time to finish restatements of earnings from 2003 and 2004.

The Kansas City, Mo.-based tax preparer also plans to delay releasing its first quarter results until Sept. 1. It had previously planned to announce those results Aug. 18.

The company’s annual report is due Thursday, but H&R Block said it would ask the SEC to extend the deadline to July 29.

H&R Block announced last month that because of “reporting errors,” it would restate earnings for the 2003 and 2004 fiscal years, as well as for the first three quarters of 2005.

Shares of H&R Block closed Friday at $59.08, up 49 cents, on the New York Stock Exchange, where the stock has traded in a 52-week range of $45.13 to $59.60.

Shoes

Footwear reaches accord with Kmart

Footstar Inc. said Friday that it had reached a deal with Kmart Corp. in the footwear retailer’s fight to regain rights to run shoe operations at Kmart stores.

Footstar said it would pay Kmart $45 million to resolve existing claims and compensate Kmart, now part of Sears Holding Corp., for sales in Kmart’s Shoemart departments based on a percentage of sales rather than a percentage of sales and profits.