STOCKS climbed to their seventh consecutive high in continued to benefit from strong semi conductor sales data released earlier this week.

Analysts were hard pressed to justify the market's seemingly unstoppable strength, and almost nobody dared to speculate when the bull market would end.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a three to one margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,492 up, 997 down and 836 unchanged.

NYSE volume totalled 478.55 million shares against 429.81 million in the previous session.

The Standard and Poor's 500 stock index rose 4.75 to 735.88, and the NYSE's composite index rose 2.10 to 389.01.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 8.38 to 1,269.10, and the American Stock Exchange's market value index rose 1.05 to 585.36.