New York (AFP)

Wall Street ended in the green Thursday, carried by the good health of the American Internet giants and by better-than-expected figures on new jobless claims in the United States.

The Nasdaq reached a new level, finishing at 11,108.07 points (+ 1.00%), its 32nd record of the year.

The index with strong technological coloring once again benefited from the good health of several of its flagship stocks, including Alphabet (+ 1.75%), Google's parent company, Amazon (+ 0.62%), Apple ( +3.49) or Microsoft (+ 1.60%).

Facebook for its part jumped 6.49%, visibly helped by the launch in the United States on Wednesday of Reels, a service for posting short videos on Instagram, which works similarly to the popular TikTok application.

The flagship index of New York City, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 0.68% to 27,386.98 points.

The extended S&P 500 index appreciated 0.64% to 3,349.16 points.

The market on Thursday welcomed weekly Labor Department figures showing 1.19 million people were newly registered as unemployed last week, down from 1.43 million the week before and better than analysts' expectations.

New claims for allowances had mounted in the previous two weeks with the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.

The US government will release monthly employment and unemployment figures for the country on Friday.

"We know that the reopening benefited the economy in May and June," said Chris Low of FHN Financial.

"But in July, attention was focused on the rise in new coronavirus infections and on new restrictions in states such as Arizona, California and Florida," the expert continues.

Analysts expect an unemployment rate of 10.5% in July and the addition of 1.48 million non-farm jobs.

In addition, investors continued to follow the negotiations in Congress between Republicans and Democrats around new measures to help communities, businesses and households hit hard by the consequences of the pandemic.

Market participants are "optimistic that Congress will soon reach a compromise," Low said, although there are still many areas of contention.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt fell to 0.539% around 8:30 p.m. GMT against 0.548% Wednesday evening.

© 2020 AFP