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* China says in close contact with Washington on trade pact
* Amazon gains on report of robust U.S. holiday online sales
* U.S. jobless claims fall, point to labor market strength
* Indexes up: Dow 0.19%, S&P 0.34%, Nasdaq 0.64%
(Updates with mid-afternoon trading)
By Lewis Krauskopf
Dec 26 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq topped the 9,000-point mark
for the first time on Thursday and the S&P 500 hit a record
high, boosted by optimism over U.S.-China trade relations and
gains in shares of Amazon.com after a report signaled robust
online holiday sales.
Traders returned from the Christmas break to digest comments
from Beijing that it was in close contact with Washington about
an initial trade agreement, shortly after U.S. President Donald
Trump talked up a signing ceremony for the recently struck Phase
1 trade deal. Cooling U.S.-China trade tensions have fueled the latest leg
of Wall Street's record-setting rally. With just days to go
until the yearend, the benchmark S&P 500 is up 29% so far this
year, which would be its biggest annual percentage gain since
2013.
“The path of least resistance is up right now," said Carol
Schleif, deputy chief investment officer of Abbot Downing
in Minneapolis. "You have had a lot more clarity on certain
things that had worried the market all year."
Shares of Amazon AMZN.O jumped 4.1% after a Mastercard
report showed that U.S. shoppers spent more online during the
holiday shopping season than in 2018, with e-commerce sales
hitting a record high. "The important part is that the online sales were much
stronger than expected. The brick-and-mortar were less than
expected, so the online sales, and principally Amazon, saved the
day," said John Conlon, director, equity strategy at People's
United Advisors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 54.97 points,
or 0.19%, to 28,570.42, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 11.06 points,
or 0.34%, to 3,234.44 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
57.12 points, or 0.64%, to 9,010.01.
Consumer discretionary .SPLRCD was the biggest gainer
among the S&P 500 sectors, spurred by Amazon. Healthcare
.SPXHC lagged the most.
The Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts, economic data that
has come in above low expectations, and corporate profits have
helped lift stocks this year along with trade-relations
optimism.
A Labor Department report on Thursday showed the number of
Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits fell
last week in a sign of ongoing labor market strength.
Trading volumes are expected to remain thin during the
holiday-shortened week.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.66-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.20-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 27 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 110 new highs and 19 new lows.