NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks mostly rose Wednesday, as Wall Street applauded what appeared to be a softening of stances in talks to avert the fiscal cliff, but the Nasdaq Composite fell with Apple Inc.

“You get the impression that there’s movement in Washington, that positions are not ideologically hardened,” said Hugh Johnson, chairman of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, N.Y.

“There is so much focus on the cliff, I’m not even sure Friday’s employment numbers are going to be important,” said Johnson, who adds the number would likely to be distorted by superstorm Sandy.

Jobs report in line with goals, Q3 productivity up

Plus, the nonfarm payrolls report doesn’t really matter, “because the outcome of this negotiation will determine what the economy will look like in 2013, it could look modestly positive or it could look terrible,” said Johnson.

With an agreement, the U.S. economy should grow 2% to 2.4% next year, and if there is no deal, “we’re talking minus 0.5% if we accept the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis,” said Johnson.

“When you have something that has been a driver of the market down and the market’s up, well that’s a good combination if you don’t own Apple,” said Johnson.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.85% rose 82.71 points, or 0.6%, to 13,034.49, with Travelers Cos. Inc. TRV, +1.48% among its risers after the insurer estimated losses from superstorm Sandy.

The S&P 500 index SPX, +1.44% climbed 2.23 points, or 0.2%, to 1,409.28, with utilities the best performing and technology hardest hit of its 10 major sectors.

Leading gains on the S&P 500, Western Digital Corp. WDC, -5.18% shares rose 7.3% after the hard-disk manufacturer became the latest company to announce an accelerated dividend.

Citigroup Inc. C, +2.57% rallied 6.3% after it announced plans to cut 11,000 jobs, or 4% of its workforce, to reduce costs. See Financial Stocks column.

At the opposite end, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. FCX, +2.64% shares dropped 16% after the mining company said it would pay $9 billion in cash and stock to acquire Plains Exploration & Production Co. US:PXP and McMoRan Exploration Co. US:MMR. Read: Mining giant Freeport-McMoRan makes energy play.

Apple Inc. AAPL, +2.15% shares declined 6.4%. Read a blog post: 5 downside catalysts for Apple.

The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +1.34% fell 22.99 points, or 0.8%, to 2,973.70, ending lower for a fourth consecutive session.

Advancers pulled ahead of decliners on the New York Stock Exchange, where 759 million shares traded. Composite volume surpassed 4.1 billion.

Treasury prices also gained, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year note US:10_YEAR down to 1.59%.

A deal to avert the fiscal cliff is “not a bad thing for Treasurys,” said Kathy Jones, a fixed-income specialist at Charles Schwab.

The bond market would prefer it “if we don’t have a fight over the debt ceiling that might rattle foreign investors,” said Jones. Plus, “any credible plan to reduce the deficit would on the margin slow the economy down,” which is also supportive of Treasury prices, she said.

Cliff notes

Stocks hit their highs of the day after Bloomberg News reported that about 40 Republicans had joined a bipartisan call to break the budget impasse.

Bloomberg reported the group had signed a letter urging the exploration of “all options” on taxes and entitlement programs. One of the petition signers, Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho, told the news service: “It’s pretty obvious Obama won the election, and he promised he was going to raise taxes on the wealthiest.”

Simpson, a Republican, said he would be willing to go along with higher tax rates for married couples earning more $500,000 in exchange for reforming spending on entitlement programs like Medicare.

Separately, Texas Representative Kay Granger, also a Republican, called extending tax cuts for middle-class earnings “the right thing to do.”

“The president seems to be saying, we’ll do something now, and possibly, if we do raise taxes on the wealthy, we’ll consider changing that in a year, perhaps by lowering the rate and broadening the base by eliminating deductions,” said Johnson from Hugh Johnson Advisors.

And, House Speaker John Boehner “did not appoint some of the more right-of-center Republicans to some committees; that was a very clear sign that Boehner wants a deal coming,” Johnson said of the Ohio Republican’s stance.

Wall Street appeared to ignore reports on the economy while waiting for resolution to the fiscal cliff.

Obama stands by fiscal-cliff tax demand

“We can only hope and pray that behind the scenes there is more going on than what we’re seeing publicly, because publicly it’s a charade,” said Art Hogan, market strategist at Lazard Capital Markets.

The budget saga continued to play out in public on Capitol Hill. Boehner on Wednesday declared his willingness to meet with President Barack Obama “at any time” to resolve the fiscal cliff, or billions in spending cuts and tax hikes scheduled to begin in January. See MarketWatch's fiscal-cliff page

Also in Washington, Obama on Wednesday addressed the annual Business Roundtable conference, a group of influential business and industry leaders, where he made his case for raising taxes on the top 2% of earners. Obama warned Republicans against starting another standoff over the nation’s debt ceiling, calling it a “game” he is not willing to play.

The partisan battle, which culminated last August, over hiking the U.S. debt limit had the nation near default for the first time and resulting in Standard & Poor’s stripping the government of its triple-A bond rating.

The Institute for Supply Management said the U.S. services sector grew at a slightly faster pace in November, and the Commerce Department reported factory orders unexpectedly rose 0.8% in October.

“It’s great that we talk about economic data, except for the fact that nobody is going to react to it, because we’re still stuck in the fiscal-cliff dungeon,” said Lazard’s Hogan.

But Wall Street stands to gain should politicians reach a deal before the end of the year. “The market has ignored enough good news for the relief rally to be significant,” Hogan said.

U.S. stock futures held their gains after the ADP Research Institute estimated U.S. companies added 118,000 people to their payrolls in November after a revised 157,000 gain the prior month. Read more on November jobs growth.

The market offered little reaction after the Labor Department reported nonfarm productivity rose 2.9% in the third quarter, its fastest pace in two years. Read more on productivity data.