US stocks climb as mega-cap tech companies soar on stimulus hope

• US stocks climbed on Thursday on continued fiscal stimulus negotiations, led by mega-cap tech giants like Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft.
• House Speak Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had multiple conversations on Thursday, as the two try to work out a fiscal stimulus deal before the upcoming recess in Congress.
• Any fiscal stimulus deal will include another round of direct stimulus checks, according to Mnuchin.
• Initial weekly jobless claims fell to 837,000, which was lower than expected and suggested that the economic recovery is trudging along.
• Watch major indexes update live here.

US stocks climbed on Thursday, led by mega-cap tech giants like Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.

Stocks were boosted by continued hope of another round of fiscal stimulus being passed by Congress ahead of their upcoming recess. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had multiple conversations throughout the day.

Any fiscal stimulus deal will include another round of direct stimulus checks, according to Mnuchin.

Also helping the markets on Thursday was a Labor Department report that said initial weekly jobless claims fell to 837,000 last week, better than the consensus estimate of 850,000 and lower than the previous week's reading of 873,000.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 4 p.m. ET close on Thursday:

• S&P 500: 3,380.80, up 0.5%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 27,816.90, up 0.1% (35 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 11,326.51, up 1.4%

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The SPAC craze continued on Thursday, with Playboy set to go public on Thursday via a merger with Mountain Crest valued at $381 million. Additionally, the first SPAC ETF began trading today under the symbol SPAK. The ETF owns a basket of blank check companies that have and have not found a target deal.

Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary laid out his strategy for investing in SPACs and highlighted the managers he would invest with, including Bill Ackman.

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Bed Bath & Beyond surged on Thursday after it reported second quarter earnings that topped analyst expectations, thanks in part to a surge in its digital sales channel.

Elsewhere, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it would extend limits on banks' ability to buy back stock and issue dividends until the end of 2020.

Gold rose as much as 1.4%, to $1,912.01 per ounce.

Oil prices traded lower. West Texas Intermediate crude fell as much as 6.5%, to $37.61 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, fell 2.5%, to $39.92 per barrel, at intraday highs.

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