U.S. stocks closed higher Thursday as investors digested economic data, set up for Friday's jobs report, and weighed news of an accord between Iran and major world powers. In U.S. economic news, there was a decline in weekly jobless claims to 268,000. February's trade deficit also came in much smaller than expected at $35.4 billion. Factory orders showed an increase of 0.2 percent in February, beating expectations for a second month of decline. The dollar traded about 0.70 percent lower as the euro gained to $1.08. Light sweet crude oil for May delivery lost 95 cents to $49.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while gold futures fell $6.40 to $1,202.00 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average added 65.06, or 0.37 percent, to 17,763.24. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 7.27, or 0.35 percent, to 2,066.96. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 6.71, or 0.14 percent, to 4,886.94.
