Stock-market bulls are finally getting some data to back up their bets that the U.S. economic recovery is picking up steam.
The Dow busted through its 2007 high of 14,164.53 earlier this week and never looked back, egged on by encouraging economic data.
The Federal Reserve's "beige book" report, named for the color of its cover, showed most of the 12 Fed districts with either "modest" or "moderate" growth at the start of the year and the ADP employment report showed 198,000 jobs added in February. That bodes well heading into Friday's jobs report from the government, which is expected to show 160,000 job gains, according to Thomson Reuters.
(Read More: Job Gains Help Fuel the Stock-Market Bulls)
"I think some of the growth surprises you're seeing (in the U.S.) are ... underlying improvement in the domestic economy," Nick Nelson, global head of equity strategy at UBS, told CNBC Europe. He expects U.S. consumer confidence to improve over the course of the year as the housing-market recovery creates a wealth effect.