U.S. equities opened higher on Thursday, with the three major indexes on track for their best week of the year, as investors kept adding to risk positions following the presidential election.
The Dow Jones industrial average hit a new all-time intraday high shortly after the open, and traded more than 100 points higher, with IBM contributing the most gains. The S&P 500 gained nearly half a percent, with financials rising almost 2 percent to lead advancers. The Nasdaq composite gained 0.5 percent.
It was widely expected that if Donald Trump — who is set to meet with President Barack Obama on Thursday — won, there would be chaos in markets since Wall Street had been seemingly expecting a Clinton win.
While there's still an edge of uncertainty, on Wednesday markets chose to focus on elements from Trump's acceptance speech, in which he discussed spending on infrastructure projects that could boost growth.
That drove industrials and infrastructure stocks higher, and raised speculation about inflation. That helped drive bond yields higher, as well as bank stocks.
On the data front, jobless claims came in at 254,000, with the Federal budget due at 2:00 p.m.
On the earnings front, Kohl's, Macy's and Ralph Lauren all reported before the bell. Disney, Michael Kors, Nordstrom and Petrobras are due to report after the bell.
In Europe, the pan-European Stoxx-600 index was around 0.34 percent higher on Thursday. In Asia, the Shanghai Composite in China closed 1.36 percent higher, while the Nikkei in Japan closed 6.72 percent higher.
In oil markets, Brent crude traded at $46.12 a barrel on Thursday, down 0.52 percent, while U.S. crude was around $44.75 a barrel, down 1.1 percent.