S&P 500 closes at record high as labor market continues recovery from pandemic

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• The S&P 500 closed at record highs on Thursday as jobless claims fell for the third week in a row.
• Jobless claims declined to 375,000, representing a fresh post-pandemic low as Americans get back to work.
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US stocks were mostly higher on Thursday, with the S&P 500 closing at record highs as weekly jobless claims fell for a third week in a row.

Jobless claims declined to 375,000 last week, representing the lowest reading since the pandemic began more than 15 months ago. Continuing claims fell to 2.87 million, beating the consensus estimate of 2.9 million.

The encouraging jobless claims reading suggest the ongoing rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant isn't slowing down job gains yet, with Americans slowly getting back to work. The data comes following July's blockbuster jobs report, with the country gaining nearly 1 million jobs last month.

Here's where US indexes stood at 4 p.m. ET close on Thursday:

• S&P 500: 4,460.83, up 0.3%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 35,499.85, up 0.04% (15 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 14,816.26, up 0.4%

Read more: Investing legend Laszlo Birinyi shares how to cash in on a bullish stock-market trade that's already earned him 250% this year - and explains why he's not worried about an imminent correction

Shares of Palantir surged as much as 15% on Thursday after the data-analytics company reported second-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates.

A strong earnings report from Clover Health, backed by Chamath Palihapitiya, helped shares soar 19% at intraday highs as revenue forecasts topped estimates.

China signaled that its tech crackdown isn't ending anytime soon, and it called for tougher rules in other key industries.

Hackers have returned $342 million to Poly Network after saying they pulled the heist off "for fun." The hackers have yet to return $268 million of ether.

Oil prices slid. West Texas Intermediate crude was down as much as 1.1%, to $68.46 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, fell 1.1%, to $70.67 per barrel, at intraday lows.

Gold rose as much as 0.4%, to $1,758.22 per ounce.

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