NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks are perking higher on Wall Street on Thursday after a report showed the pace of layoffs across the country is slowing, though it remains incredibly high.
The S&P 500 was up 0.6 percent in afternoon trading after spending much of the day waffling between smaller gains and losses. It's on pace for its fifth straight winning day, and it's rallied back to within 1.2 percent of its record high set in February.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 174 points, or 0.6 percent, at 27,375, as of 1:53 p.m. CST, as investors also waited for Congress and the White House to reach a hoped-for deal on more aid for the economy. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.9 percent and headed for another record.
The day's headline economic report showed nearly 1.2 million workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. It would have been an astounding number before the coronavirus pandemic leveled the economy. However, it's a slowdown from the prior week's slightly more than 1.4 million, and it was also not as bad as economists were expecting.