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NEW YORK (AFP) – US stocks rose on Thursday as sentiment on Wall Street was lifted by a surprise drop in weekly jobless claims and a flow of strong earnings reports from market heavyweights.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 36.25 points (0.33 percent) to 11,162.53 by 1400 GMT, while the broader S&P 500 index was up 4.87 points (0.43 percent) to 1,187.59.

The tech-rich Nasdaq composite index rose 7.16 points (0.28 percent) to 2,510.42.

Shortly before the opening bell, the Labor Department said new claims for US unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, totaling 434,000.

That was far less than the 458,000 claims expected by economists, raising hopes for stabilization in the struggling jobs market.

The dollar on Thursday also renewed its recent weeks' slide after rising over the past two days, boosting the commodities market.

On Wednesday, stocks closed mixed as hopes for a massive government stimulus plan were dampened by a report on the Wall Street Journal suggesting the Federal Reserve will only carry out limited asset purchasing.

Thursday's encouraging jobs numbers "provides another data point suggesting the economy is slowly moving ahead," said Frederic Dickson of DA Davidson.

"Today's reported decline in weekly jobless claims may raise some questions about the Fed's need to launch another round of Treasury note purchases," he said.

In corporate news, a number of components of the Dow Jones index all posted strong quarterly earnings.

ExxonMobil said its third quarter profit soared to 7.35 billion dollars, up 55 percent from last year, driven in part by higher energy prices and rising oil production in Qatar. Its shares were up 1.2 percent.

Motorola also reported a surge in third quarter revenues 109 million dollars, up from 12 million dollars the same period last year due to strong sales of smartphones. Its stocks soared nearly seven percent.

After the market closed on Wednesday, credit card giant Visa reported it ended the third quarter with 774 million dollars in profit, an increase of 51 percent from the same period last year, beating analysts' expectations.

Visa's shares fell 2.8 percent despite the company's strong outlook.

The bond market rose.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond fell to 2.68 percent from 2.71 percent on Wednesday, while that on the 30-year bond remained unchanged at 4.04 percent. Bond yield and prices move in opposite directions.

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