US equities posted a trifecta of milestones and record highs at closing on Thursday, which is a remarkable result given the political turmoil that shook the world a day ago but failed to derail the upward movement for the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average [: DJIA] closed up 0.7% and ended at a milestone above 31,000, the S&P 500 index SPX,
ended 1.5% to a milestone above 3,800, to close at about 3,804, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
finished well above 13,000, fueled by a renewed appetite for technology names after a weak index performance on Wednesday following the Senate elections in Georgia. The Nasdaq Composite closed 2.6% up to 13,067. Investors largely looked past Wednesday’s violent clash between pro-Trump protesters and focused on better-than-expected non-manufacturing reports, with the Institute for Supply Management services index rising and showing an unexpected rebound in its index from 55, 9 to 57.2 in December. In addition, weekly unemployment claims were almost stable last week, falling to 787,000 from a revised 790,000 the week before. In company news, Tesla Inc. TSLA,
ended at an all-time high, making CEO Elon Musk the richest man in the world and surpassing Amazon.com’s AMZN,
Jeff Bezos. Investors will keep a close eye on Friday’s jobs report for clues about the health of the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.