US STOCKS-Wall Street closes higher as Trump boosts hopes of stimulus

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or type
LIVE/ in a news window.)
* Pelosi seeks comprehensive stimulus deal
* Weekly jobless claims inch lower but remain elevated
* IBM jumps on infrastructure services unit's spin-off plan

(Updates to close)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Oct 8 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended higher on Thursday as
comments by U.S. President Donald Trump fueled hopes of fresh
fiscal support, while data underscored the view that the labor
market recovery was struggling to gain momentum.
Two days after calling off negotiations on a comprehensive
bill, Trump in an interview with Fox News said talks with
Congress have restarted over further COVID-19 relief and that
there was a good chance a deal could be reached. But he gave no
other details about a possible agreement. While late afternoon trading was choppy, indexes added to
gains after a White House spokeswoman said Trump wanted a
"skinny" coronavirus relief bill. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
legislation to help airlines was a matter of national security
and could only move through Congress with guarantees of work
continuing on the comprehensive deal. The Dow Jones airlines index .DJUSAR extended recent
gains.
"We're clearly being pushed around by the prospect of
getting further fiscal stimulus. That's entirely the driver,"
said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities
in New York.
"The market is just reacting to every utterance of where we
stand on fiscal policy."
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
122.31 points, or 0.43%, to 28,425.77, the S&P 500 .SPX gained
27.41 points, or 0.80%, to 3,446.86 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 56.38 points, or 0.5%, to 11,420.98.
Data on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing new
claims for jobless benefits drifted lower last week but signaled
the labor market was making little headway in getting millions
of people back on the job after being out of work due to
COVID-19 disruptions. Strategists say investors are also beginning to digest the
prospect of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden winning
the Nov. 3 election.
Biden appeared to lead Trump among likely voters in Florida
and the two were locked in a tight race in Arizona, according to
Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls released on Wednesday. "What the market is actually starting to warm up to is a
Democratic sweep in the election cycle. If it's a decisive win,
you take away the drama of a contested election," Hogan said.
International Business Machines Corp IBM.N shares rose
after saying it was splitting itself into two public companies,
capping its years-long effort to diversify away from its legacy
businesses to focus on high-margin cloud computing. Eaton Vance Corp EV.N shares surged after Morgan Stanley
MS.N agreed to buy the asset manager for about $7 billion in a
cash-and-stock deal.