By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – Wall Street advanced Thursday as big tech continued to rack up gains, though uncertainty over when lawmakers will strike a deal to roll out the next coronavirus relief bill weighed on investor sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.43%, or 117 points. The S&P 500 gained 0.40%, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.69%.
Lawmakers hinted that they will eventually reach a deal on the next fiscal stimulus package, but the timeline remains murky somewhat ahead of a self-imposed Friday deadline.
Disagreements over whether to resume the enhanced $600-a-week unemployment benefit that was rolled in March but has since lapsed remained a key sticking point.
"We have been making some progress, proceeding in a positive way. We’re not there yet," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference.
The slow pace of progress comes a day ahead of the nonfarm payrolls for July, which economists expect to show a slowdown in the labor market.
Ahead of the crucial jobs report, the Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims were less-than-expected at 1.186 million for the week ended August 1.
Beyond talks on Capitol Hill, tech remained in favor as megacap tech stocks continued to rack up gains, led by a 5% pop in Facebook.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which collectively make up about 20% of the S&P 500, were mostly higher.
Energy, went from hero to zero, paring its gains from a day earlier as oil prices retreated more than 2%.
On the earnings front, Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) slumped 8% after the streaming device company warned of uncertain outlook in the second of the year, citing sluggish recovery in TV ad spending.
ViacomCBS (NASDAQ:VIAC) reported quarterly results that topped consensus estimates and said ad declines had bottomed out in the second quarter of the year, sending its shares more than 3% higher.