US close: Dow Jones adds slight gains to record high

Wall Street stocks closed higher on Thursday as market participants thumbed over this week's jobless report and July's producer price index.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.04% at 35,499.85, while the S&P 500 was 0.30% stronger at 4,460.83 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.35% firmer at 14,816.26.

The Dow closed 14.88 points higher on Thursday, narrowly extending gains recorded in the prior session.

Thursday's primary focus was news that unemployment claims slipped during the week ended 7 August, according to the Labor Department, with initial jobless claims falling by 12,000 to 375,000. The four-week moving average of claims edged up by 1,750 to 396,250, while secondary unemployment claims dropped 114,000 to 2.86m.

Also drawing investors' attention, US producer prices rose more quickly than anticipated in July, according to the Department of Labor, with final demand prices jumping at a month-on-month pace of 1.0% in seasonally adjusted terms last month. Final demand goods prices increased by 0.6% month-on-month, with a 2.6% jump in energy prices more than offsetting a 2.1% decline in food prices, while on the services side of the equation, final demand prices were up 1.1% on the month, led by a 2.7% increase in those for transportation and warehousing.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was trading slightly higher at 1.361% following the report.