After the market holiday on Monday, stocks rung in the new trading year on Tuesday with a healthy 1.5% gain after news of positive international jobless and manufacturing reports became known. On Wednesday, the major indexes finished largely unchanged as liquidity issues in Europe offset optimism over auto makers reports of improved year-over-year sales. The Dow had its first losing session of 2012 on Thursday, although the losses were modest following an afternoon rally. On Friday, a 200,000 person increase in US nonfarm payrolls in December failed to spark a rally, as the market fell moderately.

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