U.S. stocks erased early losses as retailers from TJX Cos. to Ross Stores Inc. led gains after reporting better-than-estimated monthly sales and a private report showed faster-than-forecast jobs growth.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was little changed at 1,462.55 at 11:13 a.m. in New York after slumping as much as 0.3 percent in the first half hour of trading.

The S&P 500 surged 4.3 percent over the previous two sessions in its biggest advance in 13 months, bringing it within four points of a five-year high reached in September, amid optimism over the budget deal that avoids most of the more-than $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael P. Regan in New York at mregan12@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net