NEW YORK - An increase in regional manufacturing pushed the stock market to its third straight advance and offset concerns about lower sales at Wal-Mart. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 84 points, bringing its gains for the week to nearly 300 points. It's the best streak for the Dow since November. Stock futures turned lower after the closing bell Thursday when the Federal Reserve announced it was hiking the interest rate that it charges banks for emergency loans. The move doesn't change consumer borrowing rates, but the notion that policymakers would start to reel in some of the emergency economic supports put in place since 2007 spooked investors. The Fed's decision to increase the interest rate on emergency loans by one-quarter point to 0.75 percent pushed the dollar higher. Higher interest rates tend to raise the value of the dollar against other currencies. That can be bad for stocks by weakening demand for commodities like oil and metals, which is a negative for industrial companies. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 0.6 percent. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures lost 0.8 percent, while Nasdaq 100 index futures fell 0.7 percent. The gain in stocks Thursday came after the Philadelphia Federal Reserve said its index of regional manufacturing rose to 17.6 in February from 15.2 in January. That follows reports the past two days that also pointed to a pickup in business at the nation's factories. The report lifted stocks of companies that process raw materials because increased manufacturing should boost sales. Newmont Mining Corp. and glass maker Owens-Illinois Inc. each rose more than 2 percent. The market drifted higher in light trading volume, so analysts cautioned against reading too much in to the latest gain. Light volume indicates that many investors with concerns about the market are staying on the sidelines. The market's gains were modest in the early hours of trading after Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s reported a drop in quarterly sales at its flagship U.S. stores and issued a disappointing forecast. At the same time, the Labor Department reported that the number of workers seeking unemployment benefits for the first time rose 31,000 to 473,000 last week. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters forecast claims would fall. Unemployment is a major obstacle to a sustained recovery. Eric Mintz, assistant portfolio manager of the Eagle Mid Cap Growth Fund in St. Petersburg, Fla., said traders were able to look past the latest jobs report because heavy snow in parts of the country has skewed some of the numbers to make unemployment look worse. He said the bulk of economic reports still signal the economy is improving. "We're in the early phases of the recovery and you are going to get spotty data," he said. The Dow rose 83.66, or 0.8 percent, to 10,392.90, putting its gain for the week at 294 points. The three-day gain of 2.9 percent is the strongest for the Dow since the period ended Nov. 9. The Dow is now down 3.1 percent from a 15-month high of 10,725.43 that came Jan. 19. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.24, or 0.7 percent, to 1,106.75. The Nasdaq composite index rose 15.42, or 0.7 percent, to 2,241.71, its fifth straight advance.

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