S&P 500 within 1.1% of its record

Stocks perked higher on Wall Street on Thursday after a report showed the pace of layoffs across the country is slowing, though it remains incredibly high.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 21.39 points, or 0.6%, to 3,349.16, as investors also waited for Congress and the White House to reach a hoped-for deal on more aid for the economy. It was the fifth straight gain for the index, which now hangs just 1.1% below its record set in February.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 185.46 points, or 0.7%, to 27,386.98. The Nasdaq composite rose 109.67 points, or 1%, to 11,108.07 and set another record.

The day’s headline economic report showed that nearly 1.2 million workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. It would have been an astounding number before the pandemic leveled the economy. But it’s a slight slowdown from the prior week’s tally, and it was not as bad as economists were expecting.

Despite the market’s gains, slightly more stocks fell in the S&P 500 than rose, with the healthcare sector the heaviest weight on the index. Becton Dickinson sank 8.4% after it gave a forecast for earnings this fiscal year that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Western Digital, which makes hard disks and other storage for electronics, slumped 16.1% for the largest loss in the S&P 500 after it gave a profit forecast for the current quarter that wasn’t as strong as Wall Street’s.

More gains for Apple helped lift the market. The iPhone maker reported blowout profits for the spring a week ago, and its stock has climbed every day since then. The gains have been so strong that it may become the country’s first company to be worth $2 trillion. After rising 3.5% on Thursday, it’s at roughly $1.93 trillion.

Sealed Air, the company behind Bubble Wrap and Cryovac packaging, rose 8.8% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 after it reported stronger earnings for the quarter than analysts forecast. It also gave a better-than-expected earnings estimate for this year.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 0.53% from 0.54% late Wednesday. It pared a steeper drop from the morning, but it remains very low amid worries about the economy and as the Federal Reserve has pinned short-term rates near zero.

Some analysts have been concerned about the wide disconnect between the bond market, which is still showing so much caution, and the stock market, which has rallied. Even though the stock market is not the economy — it’s increasingly dominated by a handful of Big Tech companies that can profit even during a pandemic — critics say the size of the gap between them is concerning.

Gold also continued its record run as investors looked for safety. Gold for delivery in December rose $20.10 to settle at $2,069.40 per ounce.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil slipped 24 cents to settle at $41.95 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 8 cents to $45.09 a barrel.