Wall Street edges lower on jobs data Ebay shares soared as the company's ambitious plans to lead the mobile payments race encouraged investors, but another weak jobs report prevented Wall Street from making gains on Thursday. Elsewhere, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley said first-quarter profits were boosted by rebounds in their respective trading divisions. Overall, the S&P 500 edged 0.1 per cent lower to 1,383.73 in early activity in the week's second to last trading session. The benchmark US index is up 1 per cent for the week but continues to trade below its cyclical high of nearly 1,420 achieved on April 2. The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved 0.1 per cent lower to 13,018.06, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was flat at 3,031. Shares in eBay rose 9.8 per cent to $39.40 as the online marketplace provider said it had moved to "define the future of money" through its payment arm, PayPal. The unit launched several new initiatives in the first quarter that it plans to test throughout the year to compete against the likes of Visa , American Express and Google as companies race to create "mobile wallet" offerings for consumers. "PayPal continues to gain market share and drive profitable growth and in the first-quarter benefited from a higher take rate, and accelerating growth in number of payments," said Colin Sebastian, analyst at Baird. Revenues at PayPal jumped 32 per cent to $1.3bn as eBay posted overall sales of $3.3bn - beating analyst expectations of $3.15bn - and up 29 per cent over the same quarter a year ago. "We downgraded eBay shares [to "hold"] on March 18 [and set a price target of] $38, as we found the risk-reward outlook less compelling," said Mark Mahaney, analyst at Citigroup. First-quarter results appear to have made our call premature, which is another way of saying wrong. Meanwhile, Michael Graham, analyst at Canaccord Genuity, said he was raising his forecast of earnings-per-share growth for 2012 to 18 per cent and for 2013 to 15 per cent. Mr Graham set a price target of $41 and issued a "hold" rating for eBay shares. Also on Thursday, the US labour department said first-time jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 386,000 in the week to April 14. Despite the drop, the figure came in above expectations of 365,000 new claims. Last week's figures were revised upwards and coupled with the March jobs report, recent employment data has suggested to market watchers that labour market recovery is increasingly unsteady. "The muddy waters surrounding the employment picture darkened after jobless claims fell, albeit from an upwardly revised prior reading," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economist at Miller Tabak. Morgan Stanley shares rose almost 4 per cent to $18.36 as the US bank reported a 55 per cent increase in earnings after adjustments. Shares in Bank of America, which have risen more than 60 per cent in the year to date, gained 1.9 per cent to $9.09. Excluding one-offs relating to its debt valuation, Bank of America reported first-quarter revenues of $27.3bn, down to 2.5 per cent from the same period last year. Earnings declined from 17 cents to 3 cents a share. The bank, which passed the Federal Reserve's stress test last month but declined to return capital to shareholders, said core profits improved in the first quarter on gains from its sales and trading unit. But the bank's mortgages unit failed to turn its profit, highlighting the problem's that continue to persist since it took over Countrywide in 2008.