US stocks’ top barometer, the S&P500, closed up 1.1 percent at 3,335 on Wednesday, after a record high at 3,338.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite index gained 0.4 percent to close at 9,509, hitting an all-time high of 9,575 earlier.
Wall Street’s broadest index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, settled at 29,291, rising 1.7 percent for its biggest one-day gain in eight months.
Global equity markets rallied on Wednesday, pushing Wall Street higher, after China's Changjiang Daily newspaper reported that a team of scientists led by Zhejiang University Professor Li Lanjuan had found drugs that could inhibit the coronavirus’ development.
Sky News also reported that a British scientist has managed to reduce the development time for a potential vaccine for the virus to just 14 days versus the typical two-to-three year span.
On the US jobs front, the ADP National Employment Report showed that private employers alone added 291,000 jobs in January, versus analysts’ forecasts that US employment in all grew by about 160,000 jobs last month.