NEW YORK, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks closed higher on Thursday, rebounding from previous session's sell-off as investors digested third-quarter earnings reports as well as major economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 401.13 points, or 1.63 percent, to 24,984.55. The S&P 500 rose 49.47 points, or 1.86 percent, to 2,705.57. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 209.93 points, or 2.95 percent, to 7,318.34.

Shares of Microsoft surged 5.84 percent on Thursday after the company reported better-than-expected results Wednesday after the closing bell.

Its diluted earnings per share reached 1.14 U.S. dollars and the revenue stood at 29.08 billion dollars, both topping analyst expectation.

Tesla reported its third-quarter earnings that surprised the market. It reported 6.82 billion dollars in revenue and earnings per share of 2.9 dollars. Shares of the company jumped 9.14 percent to trade at 314.86 dollars apiece.

Twitter shares was up 15.47 percent after it reported higher than expected earnings and revenue. For the third quarter, the company registered earnings per share of 21 cents and revenue of 758 million dollars, far exceeding analysts' expectations.

On the economic front, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased last week, according to the Labor Department.

In the week ending Oct. 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 215,000, an increase of 5,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 210,000.

The four-week moving average was 211,750, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised average of 211,750.

The U.S. trade deficit in goods widened for a fourth straight month in September, bringing it to 76 billion dollars, according to the Commerce Department.

The department said U.S. exports of goods for September were 141.0 billion dollars, 2.5 billion dollars more than August exports. Imports of goods for September were 217.0 billion dollars, 3.1 billion dollars more than August imports.