At closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 185.46 points, or 0.68%, to 27,386.98. The S&P 500 index gained 21.39 points, 0.64%, to 3,349.16. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index added 109.67 points, 1%, to 11,108.07.
Investors remain hopeful that lawmakers can strike a deal on a fresh round of coronavirus relief for those Americans out of work, while both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they remained optimistic on an agreement.
Democrats and Republicans continued their intense negotiations on Thursday. Republicans have reportedly offered to increase unemployment benefits to $400 per week from their previous offer of $200 per week but Democrats want to keep benefits at $600 per week. Democrats are also pushing for massive state and local aid programs while Republicans look determined to keep the size of the stimulus package near $1 trillion. According to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, negotiators want to reach an agreement on major issues by Friday. Republicans' plan B is to use Donald Trump's executive orders to maintain unemployment benefits if no deal is reached.
Stocks also received a boost after the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the week ended Aug. 1 fell to a three-week low of 1.186 million, a decline of 249,000 from the previous week's reading of 1.435 million. The number of people receiving traditional jobless benefits through the states, known as continuing claims, dropped by a seasonally adjusted 844,000 to 16.1 million in the week ended July 25.
On the virus front, data signaled that infections are picking up again in Europe, while modeling by the University of Washington saw the U.S. death toll almost doubling by December if the pandemic's pace doesn't change. Confirmed global cases of COVID-19 approached 19 million on Thursday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and the death toll rose to 708,036. The U.S. case tally climbed to 4.8 million, while the death toll rose to 158,256.
ECONOMIC NEWS: Pull Back in US Jobless Claims Show Signs of Hope-- US initial jobless claims tumbled to 1.186 million in the week ended August 1st, a decrease of 249,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1.435 million, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. With the much bigger than expected decrease, jobless claims dropped their lowest level since the coronavirus-induced lockdowns in mid-March. The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also fell to 1,337,750, a decrease of 31,000 from the previous week's revised average of 1,368,750. Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also plunged by 844,000 to 16.107 million in the week ended July 25th.
Among Indian ADR, Tata Motors grew 0.38% to $7.85, Vedanta rose 1.08% to $6.56, WNS Holdings added 1.75% to $64.46, and ICICI Bank rose 1.37% to $9.62, Wipro added 0.7% to $4.29, and INFOSYS added 1.42% to $12.83, while Azure Power Global fell 1.96% to $21.00, Dr Reddys Labs shed 0.23% to $61.18, and HDFC Bank shed 0.22% to $46.31.
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