Wall Street Edges Up Despite Negative Jobs Data

Big tech helped Wall Street inch up to a higher close on Thursday, modestly building on a two-day rally as lacklustre economic data and mixed corporate earnings prompted a pivot back to growth stocks.

A pull-back in economically sensitive cyclicals kept the S&P 500's and the blue-chip Dow's gains muted, while small-caps underperformed their larger rivals.

But megacap tech and tech-adjacent stocks, such as Microsoft, Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet, rose ahead of their quarterly results next week, putting the Nasdaq out front.

All three major US stock indexes ended the session within 1 percent of their record closing highs.

"The market is flip-flopping between the view that economic growth has almost peaked so you need to buy stocks that manufacture their own growth like tech names, versus the view that economic growth will continue and you want to own cyclicals and value names," said David Carter, chief investment officer at Lenox Wealth Advisors in New York.

The number of US workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits spiked unexpectedly to 419,000 last week, a two-month high, according to the Labor Department.

"The jobless data today didn’t have a meaningful impact on markets or the economic outlook," Carter added. "It’s now all about how much longer the Fed will tolerate low rates. The Fed seems to be favoring its full employment mandate more than its price stability mandate."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.07 percent, to 34,823, the S&P 500 gained 0.20 percent, to 4,367 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.36 percent, to 14,685. (Reuters)