All three major U.S. stock averages closed with new records Thursday as trade optimism brought by the signing of the 'phase one' trade agreement between the U.S. and China continued. The U.S. Senate passed a new U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement Thursday, a move that will revamp the 26-year-old North American Trade Agreement.

Here's how the U.S. stock market settled after regular trading on Thursday:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): +0.84% or +27.60 points to 3,316.89

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): +0.92% or +267.35 points to 29,297.57

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): +1.06% or +98.44 points to 9,357.13

In Major Stock News, Alphabet (GOOGL  ) has become the fourth company to reach $1 trillion in market value, following Apple (AAPL  ), Microsoft (MSFT  ) and Amazon (AMZN  ). Tesla (TSLA  ) shares dipped after an analyst at Morgan Stanley (MS  ) downgraded the stock, noting that "investors will be presented with more attractive opportunities to own the stock in the future."

In U.S. Economic News, retail sales rose 0.3% in December, meeting consensus expectations. Initial unemployment claims unexpectedly fell for the week that ended January 11. Claims fell by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted reading of 204,000. Continuing unemployment claims also declined.

In Stock Sector News, all eleven sectors posted performance gains on Thursday. The increases are as follows: Information Technology +1.40%, Industrials +1.01%, Consumer Discretionary +0.90%, Real Estate +0.79%, Financials +0.77%, Communication Services +0.66%, Utilities +0.61%, Materials +0.58%, Health Care +0.52%, Consumer Staples +0.31% and Energy +0.12%.

Lastly, in Commodity and Currency News, crude oil barrel prices increased, as trade deal progress ignited energy demand hopes. West Texas Intermediate (USO  ) increased over +0.80% and Brent Crude (BNO  ) gained over +0.50%. On the other hand, Gold (GLD  ) share prices fell over -0.20% as the U.S. economic data and trade deal boosted the stock market. Finally, the U.S. Dollar gained back some strength, with the DXY Index growing over +0.10%.