The stock benchmarks ended high on Thursday, the last trading session in 2020 to end the year on a strong note after plunging into a bear market in February and March, when the COVID-19 pandemic threw the economy global economy in a deep recession. The promise of vaccines and huge tax and monetary aid have helped boost purchases in recent months, starting with the market downturn in March. On Thursday, US data showed that claims for unemployment benefits for the first time dropped unexpectedly by 19,000 to 787,000 last week. Economists polled by MarketWatch predicted that initial complaints would rise to 835,000. Continued claims for unemployment benefits dropped 103,000 to 5.22 million. The Dow Jones Industrial Average [: DJIA] rose almost 200 points, or 0.7%, to finish at around 30,606 (on a preliminary basis), marking a record close for the blue-chip index, while the S&P 500 SPX index,
reached its own closing record, ending at 0.6%, to 3,756. The Nasdaq Composite Index closed just shy of a record high of 0.1% at 12,888. However, Nasdaq Composite recorded its best annual gain since 2009, up 43.6%, according to FactSet data.
