The aircraft maker reported Tuesday that it expects to deliver its new 787 jet between July and September.

Boeing is up 3 percent, leading the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones industrial average. Stocks had been trading lower in the morning with Apple Inc. and Citigroup weighing on indexes. Apple fell 3.3 percent after saying that CEO Steve Jobs was taking another medical leave. The company will also report earnings after the stock market closes, along with IBM Corp. Citigroup fell 5.3 percent after reporting weak earnings.

As analysts and investors brace for earnings reports from more than a dozen major U.S. manufacturers over the next two weeks, they will eye revenue growth as one of the surest signs of health for the industrial sector over the next year.

Sales growth will be critical to profits this year, since major companies including General Electric Co, United Technologies Corp and 3M Co will likely face rising costs of everything from copper to payroll, which they had slashed going into the recession.

Cost management will matter if the sector is to continue its strong run on Wall Street. Standard & Poor's industrials group rose about 20 percent over the past year, the second-biggest gain in the broad S&P 500 index after the S&P consumer discretionary group which rose almost 26 percent.

"From a top-line, revenue side, we're going to see some modest expansion there," said Peter Klein, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management, in Cleveland, Ohio. "This is what I'm sort of tuning my ear to hear. And if we don't hear it, then maybe some of this ebullience that we've seen in the industrials since this summer will flatten out."

The National Association of Home Builders said Tuesday that its monthly reading of builders' sentiment was unchanged in January at 16, where it's been since November.

While it remains the highest reading since June, any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market. The index hasn't been above that level since April 2006.

"At this point, housing remains on the sidelines of a weak economic recovery as consumers and builders wait for clear and consistent indications that jobs and economic output are reviving," said David Crowe, the trade association's chief economist.

Many smaller, private builders also continue to have a tough time getting construction loans and other financing, which could significantly slow the onset of a housing recovery, Crowe noted.

High unemployment, tighter bank lending standards and uncertainty about home prices have kept many people from buying homes, despite low mortgage rates and home prices that have fallen by more than half in some markets since the peak of the housing boom.

The state's public worker pension fund has settled a federal securities fraud lawsuit against Merrill Lynch & Co. and two former company officials for $4.25 million.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund had opted out of a similar class action suit and negotiated the settlement with Bank of America, which bought Merrill Lynch in 2008.

"The Fund was misled about the extent of Merrill Lynch's participation in the subprime mortgage fiasco; that is unacceptable," said state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the fund's sole trustee.

DiNapoli, a Democrat, said Thursday he was confident the settlement "makes up for a large part of the fund's losses" from Merrill Lynch.

Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin confirmed the settlement but declined to comment further.

The suit claimed the now-$133 billion fund lost money because of Merrill Lynch's role in the mortgage-backed securities market, saying it was deliberately covered up and artificially inflated the company's stock value. That value plummeted when the exposure became known publicly.

The settled lawsuit also had named E. Stanley O'Neal and Jeffrey N. Edwards, the company's former chief executive and chief financial officers.

The fund has more than 1 million members, employees and retirees from state and local governments. Its value dropped from its historic high of about $154 billion in spring 2008 to $110 billion a year later as the economy stopped growing and the stock market tumbled, in part from losses in mortgage-backed securities.

The Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. Files a $1.5 Million Whistleblower Claim Against Raymond James & Associates, Inc.

The Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. www.suemyadvisor.com, announced today it filed an arbitration claim against Raymond James & Associates, Inc. (“RJA”), (NYSE: RJF) on behalf of a former Operations Manager.

The claim alleges that the Claimant, while serving as an Operations Manager for one of RJA’s California branch offices, consistently reported on a series of inappropriate and violative sales practices by the branch manager, and certain other financial advisors of the branch office to regional management,
senior management and home office compliance department. Some of the alleged violations included unsuitable trading and churning in accounts of elderly customers, failure to respond to exception reports, unapproved seminar speaking, misuse of marketing funds and mismarking trade confirmations.

Claimant was then terminated and allegedly defamed on his Form U5 in alleged retaliation for threatening to speak to regulators.

Michael Hill, Managing Partner with the Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. says, “one would think that given Raymond James’ and its affiliates’ regulatory history of supervisory failures, according to FINRA’s BrokerCheck, that it would act on compliance reports from its field force and increase its compliance posture to protect the investing public.”

For a free case evaluation or to discuss this matter, please contact the Securities Law Firm of Menzer & Hill, P.A. at 888-923-9223, or visit us on the web at www.suemyadvisor.com.