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NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks advanced on Thursday as better-than-expected jobs and housing data helped sustain the previous day's boom ahead of a key monthly employment report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 50.63 points (0.49 percent) to 10,320.10 while the broader S&P 500 index gained 9.81 points (0.91 percent) to 1,090.10.
The tech-rich Nasdaq composite index rose 23.17 points (1.06 percent) to 2,200.01.
Trading was cautious as investors awaited Friday's highly-anticipated employment figures.
The Labour Department is widely expected by analysts to report that non-farm payrolls - combining both government and private jobs - shrank by 120,000 in August with unemployment edging up to 9.6 percent from the current 9.5 percent rate.
"Tomorrow is a very big day, so no one wanted to put any new bets... as they wait to see what happens in terms of momentum of the recovery," FTN Financial analyst Lindsey Piegza told AFP.
Labour Department data released on Thursday before the opening bell showed the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell faster than expected last week, extending a two-week decline.
Claims for the week to August 28 fell to 472,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 478,000, beating most economists' expectations of 475,000 new claims.
The National Association of Realtors also reported pending home sales rose dramatically in July by 5.2 percent, promising a much-needed boost to the sluggish housing market, even though its outlook for recovery remained cautious.
In addition, latest figures showed orders to US factories rising 0.1 percent in July, the first increase after two months of declines although they were less than expected by most analysts.
Among stocks in focus, data storage firm 3PAR saw its shares rise by 2.49 percent to 32.88 dollars after computer giant Dell said it will not match rival Hewlett-Packard's latest offer to buy 3PAR at 33 dollars per share in cash.
3PAR's share price has more than tripled since the start of the bidding battle on August 16.
Burger King's stocks soared 25.08 percent to 23.59 dollars after investment group 3G Capital said it would buy the fast food chain for four billion dollars at 24 dollars per share in cash
The bond market continued its downwards trend. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond was up to 2.628 percent from 2.582 percent on Wednesday while that on the 30-year bond rose to 3.726 percent from 3.662 percent. Bond yield and prices move in opposite directions.
- AFP/de
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