NEW YORK — Investors poured money into stocks for a fifth day Thursday after a drop in weekly unemployment claims and an upbeat forecast from Procter & Gamble raised hopes for the economy.
Falling interest rates on Treasury securities also fed demand for stocks.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 80 points to its highest close since October. The index is up 347 points in five days.
The gains have come even as analysts say the market is overdue for a retreat. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up 54.3 percent since hitting a 12-year low in March, though it’s still down 33.3 percent from its peak in October 2007.
The latest push higher followed the Labor Department’s report that jobless claims declined more than expected to 550,000 last week.
A government report found that U.S. crude inventories fell more than expected last week. That stirred hopes that a strengthening economy is increasing its appetite for resources and lifted energy stocks.
David Bianco, head of U.S. equity strategy at Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch in New York, said the rally has merit because stocks had tumbled so far since their peak.
“This is a rally that’s supported by the fundamentals,” he said. “Maybe it’s moving a little bit too fast for the normal rules of thumb, but we haven’t seen a crash like that since the Great Depression.”
The Dow rose 80.26, or 0.8 percent, to 9,627.48, its highest close since Oct. 6, when it ended at 9,956.
The broader S&P 500 rose 10.77, or 1 percent, to 1,044.14, its first five-day climb since November. The Nasdaq composite rose 23.63, or 1.2 percent, to 2,084.02.
Ralph Fogel, co-chief investment officer at Fogel Neale Partners in New York, argues that too many analysts are expecting a pullback for it to happen. He pointed to a well-tested piece of Wall Street wisdom that if a prediction becomes too widely expected in the marketplace, that conclusion is often wrong.
“I’m not sure why this market is going to slow up so much,” Fogel said. “We look for a nice continued move upward.”
