NEW YORK, April 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks finished higher on Thursday, buoyed by upbeat earnings reports and economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 239.98 points, or 0.71 percent, to 34,060.36. The S&P 500 rose 28.29 points, or 0.68 percent, to 4,211.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 31.52 points, or 0.22 percent, to 14,082.55.

Nine of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in green, with communication services up 2.75 percent, leading the gainers. Health care and technology, however, struggled.

On the corporate side, Facebook shares jumped 7.3 percent after the U.S. social media giant reported a blowout quarter.

Apple shares closed slightly lower on Thursday. The iPhone maker on Wednesday announced financial results for its fiscal 2021 second quarter with a March quarter record revenue of 89.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 54 percent year over year.

Meanwhile, U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower with nine of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 2021, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Thursday.

"The increase in first quarter GDP (gross domestic product) reflected the continued economic recovery, reopening of establishments, and continued government response related to the COVID-19 pandemic," the department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said in the "advance" estimate.

U.S. initial jobless claims, a rough way to measure layoffs, registered 553,000 in the week ending April 24, a decrease of 13,000 from the prior week's revised level, the Department of Labor said on Thursday. The reading was higher than the 528,000 estimate issued by Dow Jones.

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept its benchmark interest rates unchanged at the record-low level of near zero. The Fed also acknowledged that U.S. inflation had risen, but reiterated this "largely" reflected "transitory factors."

Jerome Powell, in his Fed Chair Press Conference, said that the economic recovery was happening faster than expected, but acknowledged the unevenness. He said that "it is not time yet" to talk about tapering the Fed's asset purchase program, as it will "take some time before we see substantial further progress" toward the central bank's employment and inflation goals. Enditem

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