Strong Earnings, Surge In Oil Power Dow To Record High

The Dow touched a record intraday high on Thursday afternoon as strong results from department store chains and a surge in oil prices buoyed investor sentiment about economic growth.

Oil prices jumped 5 per cent on comments from the Saudi oil minister about possible action to stabilize prices and the International Energy Agency's forecast that crude markets would rebalance in the next few months.

The S&P energy index jumped 1.68 per cent, making it the top gainer among the 10 major sectors of the benchmark, led by gains in Exxon and Chevron.

Strong earnings from Macy's and Kohl's kicked off the two-day department store chains' earnings on an optimistic note.

Macy's shares soared as much as 18 percent, marking the best day for the department store operator in nearly eight years, after it reported a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly comparable-store sales and said it would close 100 stores.

Kohl's shares rose 15 per cent after its quarterly profit beat estimates.

Nordstrom rose 6.4 per cent in the run-up to the results after market closes, while J.C. Penney, which reports on Friday, was up 8 per cent.

Macy's was the top percentage gainer on the S&P 500, followed by Kohl's and Nordstrom.

"It looks like US markets are going to go higher until my daughter graduates, and she's only 3 years old," said Erik Wytenus, global investment specialist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Palm Beach Florida.

While economic data has been solid, people are calling the movement an "unloved rally", Mr Wytenus said.

Better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and a set of strong economic data have helped the S&P 500 to break its record intraday highs 11 times since early July.

Robust data continued on Thursday, with a report showing the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell 266,000 from 269,000 the week earlier, continuing a trend of being below the 300,000 mark for the 75th consecutive week.

At 1631 GMT (10:01 p.m. in India), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 132.21 points, or 0.71 per cent, at 18,627.87. The S&P 500 was up 11.13 points, or 0.51 per cent, at 2,186.62 less than 1 point from its record high.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 25.26 points, or 0.49 per cent, at 5,229.85.

Alibaba rose 5.4 per cent after the Chinese e-commerce giant posted a 59 per cent jump in quarterly revenue. Yahoo, which owns a stake in Alibaba, rose 3.8 per cent.

Valeant dropped 10 per cent after the Wall Street Journal reported that US federal prosecutors had opened a criminal investigation on the drug maker.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,963 to 960. On the Nasdaq, 1,861 issues rose and 858 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 27 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 78 new highs and 26 new lows.