Stock benchmarks ended higher on Thursday, the last trading session in 2020 to close the year strongly, after plunging into a bear market in February and March as the COVID-19 pandemic sent the global economy into a deep recession. The promise of vaccines and excessive fiscal and monetary policy support in recent months have helped drive purchases from the market lows in March. On Thursday, US data showed that first claims for unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly by 19,000 last week to 787,000. Economists polled by MarketWatch predicted initial claims would rise to 835,000. State perpetual jobless claims fell by 103,000 to 5.22 million. The Dow Jones Industrial Average [: DJIA] rose nearly 200 points, or 0.7%, finishing at around 30,606 (tentative), marking a record for the blue chip index, while the S&P 500 index SPX,
set its own record, finishing 0.6% to 3,756. The Nasdaq Composite Index just closed before a record, up 0.1% to 12,888. However, the Nasdaq Composite posted its best annual profit since 2009, up 43.6%, data from FactSet shows.