NEW YORK, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks advanced on Thursday as Wall Street cheered a slew of strong earnings reports as well as the upbeat retail sales data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 110.00 points, or 0.42 percent, to 26,559.54. The S&P 500 climbed 4.58 points, or 0.16 percent, to 2,905.03. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.98 points, or 0.02 percent, to 7,998.06.

Seven of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors closed higher, with industrials up 1.11 percent, the best-performing group. Energy declined 0.53 percent, the poorest-performing sector.

Shares of United Rentals jumped 8.14 percent on stronger-than-anticipated quarterly numbers.

Honeywell International, The Travelers Companies and American Express were among the companies that reported better-than-expected earnings on Thursday. Shares of the companies all increased.

Of the S&P 500 companies that have reported so far, more than 78 percent have topped analyst expectations, FactSet data showed.

On the economic front, the advance estimates of U.S. retail sales were 514.1 billion U.S. dollars in March, an increase of 1.6 percent from the previous month, as spending on autos, gasoline, furniture, and clothing jumped, according to the Department of Commerce on Thursday. The reading was higher than market consensus.

Meanwhile, in the week ending April 13, U.S. initial jobless claims, a rough way to measure layoffs, registered 192,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Department of Labor reported. Economists polled by MarketWatch forecast a reading of 204,000. Enditem

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