the sp 500 rose to another record high on thursday amid a strong rally in major technology stocks the broad equity benchmark gained 04 to 409717 its second straight record close the techheavy nasdaq composite rallied 1 to 1382931 as apple netflix and microsoft all climbed more than 1 amazon and alphabet also registered gains the dow jones industrial average rose 5731 points or 02 to 3350357 investors processed a worsethanexpected reading on the latest weekly jobless claims a total of 744000 americans filed for unemployment benefits for the first time during the week ended april 3 the labor department said thursday economists polled by dow jones expected firsttime claims to total 694000 the jump in jobless claims is disappointing but doesnt change our view that the next few months will see huge job gains as the economy continues to reopen said jeff buchbinder equity strategist at lpl financial in fact it wouldnt shock us to see employment return approach prepandemic levels by the end of this year federal reverse chairman jerome powell signaled on thursday that the economic rebound from the pandemic still has room to go as the recovery thus far hasnt been wellrounded the recovery remains uneven and incomplete powell said thursday in a virtual event presented by the international monetary fund and moderated by cnbcs sara eisen this unevenness that were talking about is a very serious issue powell also repeated that inflation is not expected to be serious even though nearterm price pressures are likely we dont think thats the most likely outcome but we do have the tools to deal with that outcome we will use them to guide inflation back to 2 if the need arises in the most likely case this period will show temporarily higher prices but not persistent inflation powell said president joe biden spoke on wednesday from washington about his administrations 2 trillion infrastructure plan that includes a corporate tax rate hike to 28 and noted that he is willing to negotiate on the proposed tax increase the proposed increase to the corporate tax is thought to be a key source of tax revenue for the white house infrastructure plan and is a nonstarter for republicans who say they are concerned about tax increases as the us economy emerges from the covid19 pandemic fiscal support is considered a key driver of the past months equity records and strong economic data including a strongerthanexpected march jobs report the sp 500 dow industrials and nasdaq composite are all coming off their fourth straight quarter of gains as the economic recovery from covid19 accelerates the feds latest meeting minutes released wednesday showed that officials plan to keep the pace of asset purchases the same for some time as the central bank works to support stable prices and maximum employment