Stock Market Posed To Keep Rally After 50th Record High Close Of Year

After closing Thursday, with the stock market continuing its record-setting climb, U.S. stock-index futures climbed Friday, suggesting the broad S&P 500 could post gains for the fifth day in a row.

As of 9:15 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbed 16 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16438, S&P 500 futures advanced 0.5 point, or 0.03 percent, to 1837 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 2 points, or 0.06 percent, to 3583.

Ahead of Thursday’s open, the Labor Department reported jobless claims fell by 42,000 to 338,000 last week. The Dow closed at its 50th all-time high Thursday, while the S&P 500 put its 44th record close in the bag. Both stock-market indexes are up more than 25 percent on a year-to-date basis in what would be their best years since 1996 and 1997, respectively.

Investors, not surprisingly, aren’t flocking to purchase Treasury bonds, which have been sluggish these past 14 days, pushing yields even higher. The yield on the benchmark 10-year bond climbed to 3.011 percent, which is the highest level since July 2011.

In corporate news, General Motors (GM) said it would recall 1.5 million vehicles in China over safety concerns. Analysts at Macquarie cut Twitter (TWTR) to “underperform” from “neutral.”

In commodities, U.S. crude oil futures climbed 8 cents, or 0.08 percent, to $99.63 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline dipped 0.44 percent to $2.801 a gallon. Gold fell $1.10, or 0.09 percent, to $1,211 a troy ounce.

But the stock market success has not translated into a much better labor market, with millions of Americans set to lose their unemployment benefits Saturday. The development will no doubt spark another battle between proponents of smaller government who worry long periods of joblessness hurting Americans’ prospects of long-term unemployability,  and advocates for jobless benefits who say the move will hurt the overall economy.

Federal emergency benefits will end when funds run out for a program created during the recession to supplement the benefits that states provide. The cutoff will initially affect 1.3 million people, but 1.9 million more will lose benefits by mid-2014 when their 26 weeks of state paychecks run out, according to the National Employment Law Project.

Benefits average about $300 a week.