US STOCKS-Nasdaq tops 9,000 on boosts from Amazon, trade optimism

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* Three major averages post record closing highs
* China says in close contact with Washington on trade pact
* Amazon gains on report of robust U.S. holiday online sales
* U.S. jobless claims fall, point to labor market strength
* Indexes up: Dow 0.37%, S&P 0.51%, Nasdaq 0.78%

(Updates with close of U.S. market)
By Lewis Krauskopf
Dec 26 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq crossed the 9,000-point mark
for the first time on Thursday as all three major Wall Street
indexes posted record closing highs, boosted by optimism over
U.S.-China trade relations and gains in shares of Amazon.com
after a report signaled robust online holiday sales.
Traders returned from the Christmas break to digest comments
from Beijing that it was in close contact with Washington about
an initial trade agreement, shortly after U.S. President Donald
Trump talked up a signing ceremony for the recently struck Phase
1 trade deal. Cooling U.S.-China trade tensions have fueled the latest leg
of Wall Street's record-setting rally. With just days to go
until the year-end, the benchmark S&P 500 is up 29% so far in
2019, which would be its biggest annual percentage gain since
2013.
The Nasdaq posted a record closing high for a 10th straight
session, its longest such streak since 1997.
“The path of least resistance is up right now," said Carol
Schleif, deputy chief investment officer of Abbot Downing
in Minneapolis. "You have had a lot more clarity on certain
things that had worried the market all year."
Shares of Amazon AMZN.O jumped 4.4% after a Mastercard
report showed that U.S. shoppers spent more online during the
holiday shopping season than in 2018, with e-commerce sales
hitting a record high. "The important part is that the online sales were much
stronger than expected. The brick-and-mortar were less than
expected, so the online sales, and principally Amazon, saved the
day," said John Conlon, director, equity strategy at People's
United Advisors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 105.94 points,
or 0.37%, to 28,621.39, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 16.53 points,
or 0.51%, to 3,239.91 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
69.51 points, or 0.78%, to 9,022.39.
Consumer discretionary .SPLRCD was the biggest gainer
among the S&P 500 sectors, spurred by Amazon. Healthcare
.SPXHC was the lone sector in the red.
A 0.9% decline in shares of Boeing Co BA.N , which has been
dealing with fallout from the grounding of its 737 MAX jet,
weighed particularly on the Dow. The Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts as well as
better-than-feared economic data and corporate profits have
helped lift stocks this year along with trade-relations
optimism.
A Labor Department report on Thursday showed the number of
Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits fell
last week in a sign of ongoing labor market strength.

About 4.5 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges,
well below the 6.8 billion daily average over the last 20
sessions.
Trading volumes are expected to remain thin during the
holiday-shortened week.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.87-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.22-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 37 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 120 new highs and 27 new lows.