Stocks opened with modest gains Thursday and edged higher throughout the session thanks to a round of well-received economic data and the potential for a delayed trade-deal deadline.
Ahead of the open, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by 10,000 last week to 236,000.
Separate data from the Census Bureau showed durable goods orders jumped 16.4% in May, the fifth increase in six months.
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Still, the final reading on first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) showed that the U.S. economy did indeed contract to start 2025.
"The takeaway from this morning's mixed data is that the economy is slowing, but remains resilient," says Chris Larkin, managing director of Trading and Investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley.
Will the July 9 tariff deadline be extended?
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested the upcoming July 9 deadline for countries to submit proposed trade plans in response to President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs could be delayed.
"The deadline is not critical," Leavitt said during a White House press briefing, noting that the Trump administration "can simply provide" a trade deal to countries that have not submitted one.
However, the press secretary underscored that any potential extension is "a decision for the president."
Powell rumors weigh on the dollar
Outside of the equities market, speculation that President Donald Trump could name a replacement for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sooner rather than later drove the U.S. dollar to its lowest level in three years.
Trump has criticized Powell's wait-and-see approach to rate cuts, which the Fed chair says is necessary at this point due to tariff uncertainty and its potential impact on inflation.
A Wednesday evening report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that Trump is considering naming a replacement for Powell as soon as this summer.
With Powell's term not up until May 2026, the early announcement "could allow the chair-in-waiting to influence investor expectations about the likely path for rates, like a backseat driver, attempting to steer monetary policy before Powell’s term ends," write WSJ reporters Brian Schwartz and Nick Timiraos.
This is what many have referred to as a "shadow Fed chair."
Why Cyngn stock more than doubled today
In single-stock news, shares of Cyngn (CYN) surged 171.5% after the autonomous vehicle technology company said it teamed up with artificial intelligence (AI) bellwether Nvidia.
The collaboration combines Cyngn's DriveMod AV technology with Nvidia's Isaac robotics platform "to accelerate safe, scalable autonomy across dynamic, real-world environments," the press release states.
While Thursday's rally is exciting, market participants should know that CYN is one of the riskiest stocks to buy right now.
Heading into today's session, shares were down 96% for the year to date. And CYN's three-year beta of 2.17 means it is much more volatile than the broader market.
Nvidia, meanwhile, joined a broader rally in mega-cap stocks and finished the day up 0.5%. Meta Platforms (META) tacked on 2.5%, while Amazon.com (AMZN, +2.4%) and Alphabet (GOOGL, +1.7%) also notched impressive returns.
As for the main indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.9% to 43,386. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 6,141 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.0% to 20,167 – both benchmarks finishing within a chip-shot of their respective all-time highs of 6,144.15 from February 19 and 20,173.89 from December 16.
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