Wall Street closes at record; crude falls 5 percent

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) – Wall Street closed at record levels Thursday as tech stocks rose while crude oil prices sharply declined.

The Dow increased 70 points to end trading at 21,082.

The S&P climbed 10 points to 2,415 and the Nasdaq added 42 points to 6,205 – each new highs.

All three indexes closed with gains for the sixth consecutive trading day.

Electric automaker Tesla saw its shares gain 2.1 percent, while streaming giant Netflix rose 3.4 percent.

Crude prices fell around 5 percent despite a decision by OPEC to extend its production cut deal for nine months until March 31.

Investors expected the cartel to extend the amount of production cuts, or the duration of the agreement, according to analysts who said the decision was not surprising for the global oil market.

At the final bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was trading at $48.66 -- a 5.2 percent decline, and international benchmark Brent crude was down 5 percent to $51.24.