At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index inclined 318.19 points, or 0.93%, to 34,549. The S&P 500 index was up 34.03 points, or 0.82%, at 4,202. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index added 50.42 points, or 0.37%, to 13,633.
All 11 major S&P 500 sectors closed higher, with financials, consumer staples, materials, industrials, and energy issues led sectoral advances.
Shares of blue-chip Goldman Sachs, IBM, Cisco Systems, Apple, Microsoft and Intel were among the winners, on expectations of an economic recovery and strong profits this year.
Shares of drugmakers Moderna and Pfizer closed lower following news late Wednesday that the White House supports waiving intellectual property rights for COVID0-19 vaccines to speed up immunizations in poorer countries.
ECONOMIC NEWS: US Jobless Claims Fall Below 500,000- US initial jobless claims slid to 498,000 in the week ended May 1st, a decrease of 92,000 from the previous week's revised level of 590,000, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. With the much bigger than expected decrease, jobless claims once again fell to their lowest level since hitting 256,000 in the week ended March 14, 2020. The less volatile four-week moving average also dropped to a more than one-year low of 560,000, a decrease of 61,000 from the previous week's revised average of 225,500. Meanwhile, the report showed continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, rose by 37,000 to 3.690 million in the week ended April 24th.
Among Indian ADR, HDFC Bank rose 1% to $70.55, ICICI Bank added 2.15% to $16.66, Tata Motors added 3.45% to $20.39, Wipro added 3.87% to $7.52, Dr Reddys Labs added 0.63% to $70.69, WNS Holdings added 0.8% to $71.25, INFOSYS rose 1.69% to $18.60, and Vedanta added 3.12% to $14.88.
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