Briefing.com Stocks Close at Fresh 52-week Highs

Dow +54.03 at 10520.70, Nasdaq +16.05 at 2285.69, S&P +5.86 at 1126.45

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices posted modest gains to close at fresh 52-week highs following a holiday-shortened session in extremely light volume.

Thursday marked an extremely slow session, as expected, as many market participants were off their desks as they took an extended weekend ahead of Christmas. A total of 287 mln shares exchanged hands on the NYSE, well below the one year average of 1.4 bln.  Buying interest was broad-based, with nine of the 10 sectors posting a gain. Tech outperformed with a gain of 1.0%, while healthcare underperformed, closing near the unchanged mark.

There was a dearth of corporate items, but there were two key economic releases.

On a positive note, weekly initial jobless claims dropped by a larger-than-expected amount to 450,000 from 480,000 in the prior week. This beat the consensus estimate of 470,000 and was the lowest level since fall 2008. While the labor market remains weak, the trend in jobless claims has been heading in the right direction.

Separately, November durable goods orders rose 0.2% month-over-month, which was worse than the economist consensus of 0.5%. But durable goods orders excluding aircraft rose 2.0% month-over-month, which was better than consensus of 1.1%. The latter data point also saw a positive revision to a decrease of 0.7% compared to the original reading that showed a decline of 1.3%.

As a reminder, the market is closed Friday for Christmas.