By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 racked up gains Thursday, as agreement on a stop-gap measure to raise the debt ceiling and temporarily avert a U.S. default paved the way for a sea of green on Wall Street.

The Nasdaq gained 1.1%, or 366.90 Points, and rose by 0.97%.

Chuck Schumer, the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, said that lawmakers came to an agreement on raising the Treasury Department’s debt ceiling to $480 billion in order to enable the government to pay its obligations until December.

“The deal takes the near term risk off the table … and allows Democrats to turn their focus to finding a compromise on the multi-trillion reconciliation package,” said Aptus Capital Advisors portfolio manager David Wagner said in an interview with Investing.com on Thursday​

The broader movement higher was due to the rise in Cyclical Stocks, which are more likely to follow the economy’s movements.

Following approval by the Casino and Sports Betting Company to buy the Sports Media company, theScore, Consumer discretionary was the highest performing sector.

A rally in autos, including General Motors and Ford (NYSE:), rounded out our top-performing consumer discretionary stock list amid continued optimism over both automaker’s plans to create electric cars.

Oil prices saw a drop in losses, and oil stocks rose as energy prices rebounded. The U.S. announced that it will tap emergency oil reserves to reduce the gas price pressure.

Megacap tech, the one that sparked a wider market rebound just a few days earlier, continues to trend higher.

Other than Apple (NASDAQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ), Amazon.com.com. (NASDAQ), and Alphabet.com. (NASDAQ), were all in the green.

Twitter (NYSE:) meanwhile jumped 4 percent after the company announced plans to sell MoPub’s mobile advertising network to AppLovin, a mobile gaming developer for $1.05billion.

On the earnings front, Levi Strauss & Co  (NYSE:) was the standout performer, rising 9% after its quarterly results that topped Wall Street expectations on both the top and bottom lines.

Just a few days remain before September’s nonfarm payrolls. Better-than-expected Weekly Jobless Claims Data has fueled investor optimism regarding the economic recovery.

The Labor Department reported that 36,000 people applied for unemployment insurance. That’s down 38,000 against the upwardly revised 364,000 the week before and lower than forecasts for 348,000.

According to claims, the fall indicates a recovering labor market. Friday’s improved jobs data could support the Federal Reserve in granting the go ahead to taper its bond purchases.

Economists predict that the U.S. would have created 500,000 new jobs last month. This is an improvement over the 225,000 in August.

Wagner stated that the Fed will taper this year. The pace is likely to be $15 billion per month. However, Wagner said it has not been declared official policy. Markets are most at risk if the Fed is more aggressive with their QE tapering so it can end earlier in 2022.