Stocks posted small gains Wednesday, with the major indexes advancing for the first time in five sessions, despite new reports of weakness in the housing and manufacturing industries. Stocks continued the downtrend at the start of trading on disappointing government reports of new home sales and orders for durable goods, but rebounded in the final hour. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 19.61 points, or 0.2 percent, at 10,060.06. The broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 3.46 points, or 0.33 percent, to 1,055.33, and the Nasdaq composite index gained 17.78 points, or 0.84 percent, to 2,141.54. It was the first day since last Wednesday that the Dow and the S&P rose. Interest rates were slightly higher. The Treasury's benchmark 10-year note fell 13/32, to 100 25/32, and the yield rose to 2.53 percent from 2.49 percent late Tuesday. Many of the things investors are counting on to lead the economy to more normal growth 'are either disappointing or not coming to fruition,' said Alan B. Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates, a money management and investment advisory firm. Most recently, that has been especially true with the weak housing data. 'Those numbers were incredibly poor, but it has really been the last three or four weeks getting progressively worse, and investors are starting to realize this is not an aberration or one bad number,' Lancz said. The Commerce Department said that orders for durable goods rose 0.3 percent in July, much less than the 3 percent increase that analysts had predicted. Orders dropped 3.8 percent when the volatile transportation sector was excluded. In the latest report on housing, the Commerce Department said new-home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,600. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a rate of 330,000. A report on Tuesday said that sales of previously owned homes fell in July to their lowest level in more than a decade. Daniel J. Meckstroth, the chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, said the figures showed that the economy was clearly decelerating. While housing data has been weak, the manufacturing sector had been a relatively strong spot in the total economic recovery picture. 'Now that it seems clear that the recovery is moving at a slow and uneven pace, the need for equipment is less pressing and the impetus for growth switches to one of enhancing productivity to cut costs,' Meckstroth said. Oddly, the housing sector was among the gainers after Toll Brothers, the home builder, reported results. Toll Brothers posted its first quarterly profit in three years and both profit and sales were better than Wall Street had expected. Shares of Toll Brothers rose 94 cents, or 5.81 percent, to $17.13. A rival home builder, DR Horton, rose 46 cents, to $10.43, and was among the leading gainers on the S&P 500. Other gainers were the health care and consumer discretionary sectors, which rose almost 1 percent. Energy, utilities and industrials slipped. Analysts will be looking for more guidance on Friday from a revised report on the nation's second-quarter gross domestic product growth. The figure, to be reported by the Commerce Department, is expected to be revised to 1 percent to 1.5 percent from 2.4 percent. 