The S&P 500 Index briefly rose above 5,500 for the first time ever on Thursday as Nvidia's (NVDA  ) artificial intelligence fuelled rally continues with no clear end in sight. The chipmaker became the most valuable public company during Tuesday's session, and has risen over 170 year-to-date.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed just over 300 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite declined about 0.2% and 0.8%, respectively.

Here's how the market settled on Thursday:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): -0.25% or -13.80 points to 5,473.22

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): +0.77% or +300.10 points to 39,134.96

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): -0.79% or -140.65 points to 17,721.59

In Economic News:

Initial Unemployment Claims totaled 238,000 for the week ended June 15, the Labor Department reported Thursday, declining from the previous week but topped estimates. Continuing jobless claims, which are tracked a week behind, rose by 15,000 to 1.828 million.

Housing Starts declined to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.277 million in May, falling by 5.5% month-over-month and 19.3% compared with the previous year, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Building Permits, meanwhile, also reported monthly and annual declines, posting a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.386 million units in May.

"Builders continue to add to the inventory count. In May, single-family home completions were still roughly 1% higher than a year ago," said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, in a statement. "With more homes coming on the market and no equally large uptick in housing sales, total for-sale housing inventory is higher than it was a year ago."

In the News:

Dell Technologies (DELL  )and Super Micro Computer (SCMI  ) rose Thursday after Elon Musk revealed in a post on his social media platform X that the two hardware companies will provide servers to xAI to help the startup develop a supercomputer.

Amazon (AMZN  ) announced Thursday it has removed 95% of the plastic air pillows from its packaging in North America, and plans to replace the shipping protectors with paper filings made from 100% recycled materials; this is Amazon's largest plastic-packaging reduction effort to date.

"We are working towards full removal in North America by the end of year and will continue to innovate, test, and scale in order to prioritize curbside recyclable materials," Pat Lindner, vice president of Mechatronics and Sustainable Packaging at Amazon, said in a statement.

Gilead Sciences (GILD  ) shares rose higher Thursday after results from a late-stage clinical trial show its twice-yearly HIV preventative shot, lenacapavir, was 100% effective. Moreover, as none of the roughly 2,000 women in the trial who received lenacapavir had contracted HIV by an interim analysis, the independent data monitoring committee recommended that Gilead unblind the trial and offer the treatment to all participants.

"What the world needs is people to have more PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis] options so they can make the choice of the option that's going to work best for them," said Jared Baeten, vice president of clinical development for HIV at Gilead, in a statement.

For Friday:

Market participants will turn their attention towards readings of the S&P services and manufacturing flash purchasing managers index for June as well as existing U.S. home sales for May.