Despite historic weekly jobless claims, Wall Street surged again on Thursday as optimism surrounding the Senate's economic stimulus package influenced trading. The Department of Labor's weekly unemployment claims report showed a record 3.28 million number of claims for the week ending March 21, which was far more than what many economists had expected and far above the number of claims after the 2008 financial crisis.
Here's how the market closed on its third-straight day of gains:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +6.24% or +154.51 points to 2,630.07
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +6.38% or +1,351.62 points to 22,552.17
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +5.60% or +413.24 points to 7,797.54
In Major Stock News, Slack (NYSE: WORK) CEO Stewart Butterfield boasted on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) Thursday that the software company was seeing a "demand surge" due to the coronavirus. Boeing (NYSE: BA) jumped again on Thursday, bringing its gains for the week so far to 91%. UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH) shares climbed after the insurer said a self-administered COVID-19 test is in development. Henry Schein (NASDAQ: HSIC) also gained after the health care company announced a new coronavirus antibody test is available.
In Stock Sector News, for the first time this week, every sector posted performance gains on Thursday. The gains were as follows: Utilities +8.39%, Real Estate +7.81%, Health Care +6.98%, Financials +6.43%, Industrials +6.41%, Information Technology +6.35%, Energy +6.05%, Communication Services +6.05%, Consumer Staples +5.67%, Materials +4.94% and Consumer Discretionary +4.30%.
Lastly, in Commodity and Currency News, crude oil prices dropped again as demand dwindles. West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) shedded -4.65% off its barrel price and Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) dropped -1.85%, bring crude barrel prices to $23-$27 each. Gold (NYSE: GLD) prices increased by +1.52%, bring the yellow metal's price to about $1,636 per ounce. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) fell on Thursday, with the DXY Index dropping -1.45%.