NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks rose early Thursday, extending this week's market upturn following a batch of mostly good corporate earnings and improving employment data.

Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare said the stock market was starting to have "that invincible feel about it again," shrugging off signs of economic weakness and rallying on pullbacks.

Major indices are back near records after last week's week's turmoil, when frenzied buying in GameStop and a handful of other stocks helped spark broader market volatility.

About 45 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8 percent at 30,956.38.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent to 3,851.68, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.4 percent to 13,667.81.

New applications for jobless benefits declined for a third straight week, dropping to levels last seen in November, the US Labor Department reported. The report comes ahead of Friday's closely-watched monthly jobs report.

Investors are also monitoring ongoing news from Washington, where President Joe Biden in readying a $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

Among individual companies, Merck was down 1.6 percent as it announced that Ken Frazier would step down as chief executive and be succeeded by Chief Financial Officer Robert Davis.