major us stock indexes closed higher thursday with the sp 500 ending at 7week highs after the official scorecard of the american economy showed a strong 29 annual rate of growth for the fourth quarter of 2022 the dow jones industrial average djia rose about 204 points or 06 ending near 33948 close to the sessions high but the days bigger gains came from the sp 500 index spx and the nasdaq composite index comp  which gained 11 and 18 respectively the sp 500 ended at its highest close since dec 2 according to preliminary factset data the us economy reported a robust quarterly gain to end the year on thursday which helped advance risktaking on wall street even though many economist still expect the us to face tougher odds of avoiding a recession in 2023 as the fed plans to keep increasing rates in the next few months and to keep them high for some time as part of its inflation fight