The US markets ended higher on Thursday, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 reaching new record closing highs, after President Joe Biden declared that the White House struck an infrastructure deal with a bipartisan group of senators. The strength on markets came as traders looked to get back into action after taking a breather on Wednesday, when the major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line. Positive sentiment may also have been generated in reaction to a Labor Department report showing a modest decrease in first-time claims for US unemployment benefits in the week ended June 19th. The Labor Department said initial jobless claims edged down to 411,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week's revised level of 418,000. Street had expected jobless claims to drop to 380,000 from the 412,000 originally reported for the previous week.
A separate report from the Commerce Department showed new orders for US manufactured durable goods rebounded in the month of May. The report said durable goods orders surged up by 2.3 percent in May after falling by a revised 0.8 percent in April. Street had expected durable goods orders to spike by 2.7 percent compared to the 1.3 percent slump that had been reported for the previous month. Excluding orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders rose by 0.3 percent in May after jumping by 1.7 percent in April. Ex-transportation orders were expected to increase by 0.7 percent.
Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 322.58 points or 0.95 percent to 34,196.82, Nasdaq surged 97.98 points or 0.69 percent to 14,369.71 and S&P 500 was up by 24.65 points or 0.58 percent to 4,266.49.