us stocks on thursday looked set to extend their advance toward fresh records to cap 2021 with investor buying driven at least partly by the belief that an omicronfueled spread of covid won’t do lasting damage to the economy investors are looking for their final economic reports of this calendar year including a weekly us update on those seeking unemployment insurance benefits sign up for our market watch newsletters here   futures for the dow jones industrial average ymh22 ym00 were edging up 50 points or 01 to 36431   sp 500 index futures esh22 es00 were trading 875 points or 02 to trade at 479325 on wednesday the dow djia rose 9042 points or 03 ending at a record 3648863 and marking its 45th record close of 2021 the sp 500 index spx gained 671 points or 01 finishing at a record 479306 for its 70th record close of 2021 the nasdaq composite index comp  however shed 1551 points or 01 closing at 1576622 for the week the dow is headed for a gain of 15 the sp 500 are looking at a 14 the nasdaq composite was looking at a 07 rise over the period for the month and year the dow was on track for 58 rise in december and a 192 gain for 2021 the sp 500 is looking at a 5 for the month so far and a 284 gain in the year to date while the nasdaq composite was up 15 on the month and 225 in 2021 us stock index futures edged higher in early trading after the sp 500 index and the dow jones industrial average closed at new records wednesday with investors awaiting a report on initial jobless claims for the week ended dec 25 to help provide further evidence that the omicron variant of the virus that causes covid19 isn’t significantly hurting the jobs market and the economy economists surveyed by the wall street journal expect that firsttime applications for unemployment benefits will remain at 50year lows at around 205000 the data will be released at 830 am eastern time the evidence in recent weeks suggests the omicron variant of covid results in milder symptoms than earlier strains of coronavirus the number of americans now in the hospital with covid19 is running at around 60000 or about half the figure seen in january the centers for disease control and prevention reported even though new daily cases are at a record it’s highly unlikely that hospitalization numbers will ever rise to their previous peak amesh adalja senior scholar at the johns hopkins center for health security at the bloomberg school public health told the associated press vaccines and treatments developed since last year have made it easier to curb the spread of the virus and minimize serious effects among people with breakthrough infections “its going to take some time for people to get attuned to the fact that cases don’t matter the same way they did in the past” adalja said “we have a lot of defense against it” but even with fewer people hospitalized compared with past surges the virus can wreak havoc on hospitals and health care workers he added in addition johnson  johnson jnj said thursday that a south african phase 3 study showed that its booster shot of its vaccine was 85 effective in preventing covid19related hospitalization beyond the joblessness data investors also are watching for a report on manufacturing activity in the chicago area for december chicago pmi’s are set to come in at 62 up from 618 in the previous month the data is scheduled to be released at 945 am there will be no data on friday in observance of the new year’s holiday which companies are in focus   shares of biogen biib were headed lower after koreabased samsung biologics 207940 called a media report that it was about to buy the company “not true”   uslisted shares of didi global didi were headed lower premarket after the ridehailing firm said its thirdquarter revenue dropped how are other assets faring   the yield on the 10year treasury note tmubmusd10y was at 153 down by 1 basis points but still hanging around its highest since nov 24 according to dow jones market data yields for debt rise as prices falls   the ice us dollar index dxy a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals was up 01   oil futures fell with the us benchmark cl00 trading 04 to 7617 a barrel gold futures gc00 for february delivery gcg22 declined 01 at 180320 an ounce   bitcoin btcusd was flat at around 47195   the stoxx europe 600 index sxxp traded 03 lower while london markets rose less than 01   in asian trade the shanghai composite shcomp ended 06 higher while the hang seng index hsi edged up 01 japan’s nikkei 225 nik closed 04 lower and china’s csi 300 000300 booked a 08 advance