The Dow Jones Industrials, after most of the day in negative territory, squeezed out gains of 2.63 points to 33,485.35.
The S&P 500 moved ahead 14.61 points to 4,104.99.
The NASDAQ jumped 91.1 points to 12,087.96.
The S&P 500 is still down 0.1% this week, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ has fallen 1.1%. The 30-stock Dow is up 0.6%.
The latest weekly jobless claims came in higher than expected, adding to recent signals that pointed to slowing job growth. The expansion in private payrolls was well below expectations in March, ADP said earlier this week. Meanwhile, the number of available positions fell below 10 million in February — a first in almost two years. Job cuts have also soared by nearly fivefold so far this year from a year ago.
Over the past several months, investors had cheered signs of economic cooling on the hope that it could push the Federal Reserve to change course on its interest rate hiking campaign. But they are now wondering if the central bank has gone too far in its bid to cool inflation, tightening the economy to the point of a recession.
Thursday will cap off a shortened trading week with the market closed for Good Friday. Investors will still closely monitor March jobs report Friday morning. Non-farm payrolls has been showing solid growth despite layoffs across tech and financial sectors, but many believe the trend is poised to reverse soon.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury strengthened, lowering yields to 3.30% from Wednesday 3.31%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped five cents to $80.56 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices declined $12.60 to $2,023.00 U.S. an ounce.