S&P 500 posts best week since 1974 as new Fed stimulus offsets historic unemployment filings

S&P 500 posts best week since 1974 as new Fed stimulus offsets historic unemployment filings

US stocks climbed on Thursday, continuing gains from Wednesday, as the Federal Reserve announced an additional $2.3 trillion in aid to businesses and governments.. The S&P 500 capped off a 12% weekly gain, its best such return since 1974, while the Dow Jones industrial average rose 13% over the shortened four-day period.. "Main Street should be feeling a slight sense of relief today," Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors, told Business Insider.. The Labor Department also reported on Thursday morning that weekly jobless claims hit 6.6 million in the week that ended April 4 .. "The catastrophic scale of the COVID-19 crisis is even more apparent," Ron Temple, head of US equities at Lazard Asset Management, told Business Insider.. Read more: Morgan Stanley handpicks the 18 best US stocks to buy now while they're cheap to enjoy profits for years to come. Investors also watched the news about the coronavirus pandemic.. US deaths from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, were at more than 14,700 on Thursday, with about 430,000 cases..