premise: Wall Street's main indexes leapt to fresh highs Thursday as investors appeared encouraged by the latest economic news and shook off a jump in oil prices.
  The Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a new all-time record closing high with a gain of 96.46 points (0.78 percent) to 12,413.96 at the closing bell.
  The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite meanwhile climbed 21.44 points (0.88 percent) to 2,453.85, its highest level since February 2001. The Standard and Poor's 500 advanced 11.95 points (0.85 percent) to a preliminary close of 1,425.16, a new six-year high for the broad-market index.
  In economic news, the US Labor Department reported weekly jobless claims fell 20,000 to 304,000 in the past week, the latest in a string of stronger-than-expected data.
   What would have been less likely if investors hadn't been encouraged by the latest economic news?
hypothesis: Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a new all-time record