New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange advanced at the opening on Thursday, moving towards new records during one of the last sessions of the year.

Around 3:00 p.m. GMT, the Wall Street flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, appreciated 0.17% to 28,564.97 points.

The highly technological Nasdaq took 0.35% to 8,984.57 points, and the broad S&P 500 index rose 0.25% to 3,231.39 points.

While several Asian stock exchanges and the main European places remained closed Thursday, Wall Street opened, after a truce the day before for Christmas.

Following a shortened session on Tuesday, the main New York indices had finished close to breakeven, the Dow Jones yielding 0.13% and the Nasdaq gaining 0.08%, which had allowed it to reach an unprecedented level.

"The real question is what will be the volume of trade (Thursday). Liquidity is not completely absent but it is scarce with so many closed markets around the world and as many American players who are still in fashion vacation, "notes Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.

Anticipating a relatively calm session, investors were interested in the indicators of the day, notably observing a decline in unemployment benefit claims, which stood at 222,000 for the third week of December, according to weekly figures from the Labor Department.

These figures seem to confirm the good health of the labor market in the United States, the unemployment rate having fallen to its lowest level in 50 years at least in November, at 3.5%.

Seattle giant Amazon (+ 1.60%), for its part, welcomed adding 250,000 full-time and part-time jobs during the holiday season, stressing that the total number of its employees worldwide is 750,000.

The specialist in online commerce has also reported record sales during this period thanks to the sale of tens of millions of products stamped Amazon.

These figures echo a report by Mastercard, released on Thursday, indicating an increase in online commerce of almost 19% over a year between November 1 and December 24.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on US treasury bills was down slightly, to 1.896% against 1.900% at the previous closing.

© 2019 AFP