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The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 indexes hit their all-time closing records on Thursday after another day of solid gains. The Dow Jones industrial average remained above 21,000, but still shy of its record. 

Crude oil, on the other hand, tumbled after the conclusion of the meeting agreed to extend production cuts for nine months.

We've got all the headlines, but first, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 21,082.95 +70.53, (+0.34%)
• S&P 500: 2,415.07, +10.68, (+0.44%)
• Nasdaq: 6,205.26, +42.23, (+0.69%)
• US 10-year yield: 2.255%, -0.011
• WTI crude oil: $48.86, -2.68, -5.22%

1. OPEC agreed to extend crude oil production cuts for nine more months, but crude oil still dived. WTI dived by more than 5% in trading on Thursday after the oil cartel wrapped its meeting with an agreement to extend, but not deepen cuts.
2. Bitcoin surged to an all-time high before diving. The cryptocurrency nearly cracked $2,800 a coin before falling back down to just over $2,400 a coin. Bitcoin is still up roughly 140% for the year.
3. Amazon toyed with the $1,000 per share mark. The tech giant traded as high as $998 per share before settling around $994. The stock is up 41% over the past year and 50,000% over the last 20 years.
4. Initial jobless claims rose slightly. Claims, which count the number of people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, rose by 1,000 to 234,000 from last week's upwardly revised 233,000. this was still lower than economists' forecast of 238,000.
5. Best Buy beat on earnings. Comparable sales for the retailer climbed 1.6%, exceeding consensus forecasts of a 1.5% contraction. The firm reported first-quarter profit of $0.60 per share, above the average estimate of $0.40 per share and beating even the most optimistic forecast.
6. Sears turned a quarterly profit for the first time in almost 2 years. The struggling department store chain reported the gain due to the sale of its Craftsman tools unit. Without the sale, the firm would have reported a loss.

ADDITIONALLY:

Everyone is missing a critical point about Sears' first quarter profit

Morgan Stanley's latest prediction about the future of self-driving cars should terrify automakers

Corporate America investing in itself is going to be what powers stocks higher

A legendary hedge fund that raised $5 billion in 24 hours expects 'all hell to break loose'

Hedge funds are betting billions that a stock loved by millennials will plummet

There's a big divide in California's housing market

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This week's topics include:

• Ford got a new CEO this week. We discuss what this means for Ford and what it says about the short-term incentives of US companies.
• Henry Blodget examines bitcoin's surge higher. The virtual currency has more than doubled in the past two months, and Blodget says it could go to $1 million just as easily as it could go to $0. Because it has no intrinsic value!
• We are joined by top Wall Street strategist Jonathan Golub, who debunks all your market fears. Golub is chief equity strategist for RBC Capital Markets. He concedes that valuations are high, but he expects multiples to continue to expand. He expects wages to increase, the consumer to become healthier, and corporate earnings to continue to grow. He has a 2500 price target on the S&P for the end of the year.

Join the conversation about this story »

Bitcoin prices fell sharply today after setting a new all-time high above $2,700 on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

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Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.

A battle is brewing over the best-performing stock since last year's US election.

The company in question is Nvidia, which has enjoyed a particularly charmed existence since November 8. The graphics-chip maker's stock price has exploded 95% higher since then, the biggest gain in the S&P 500 by almost 30 percentage points.

On one hand, the company has been targeted by large speculators as a stock likely to decline, as reflected by the roughly $3 billion in short positions held by hedge funds. But it's also one of the favorite stocks for millennial investors.

Elsewhere in markets news, global stocks are at record highs. Amazon is on the verge of hitting $1,000 a share for the first time. And corporate America investing in itself is going to be what powers stocks higher, according to Business Insider's Joe Ciolli. 

On Wall Street, another senior executive is set to leave Deutsche Bank. The biggest players in the foreign exchange markets are losing influence. UBS is going head-to-head with JPMorgan and American Express by dropping a new luxury travel rewards credit card.

And Aviva, the 321-year-old British insurance giant, wants to become a financial technology company.

The Fed says it'll be appropriate to raise interest rates again "soon." It also warned the auto glut could get worse. There's one big problem with the Fed's plan to unwind its gigantic balance sheet, according to Business Insider's Pedro da Costa. 

The bitcoin rally may be running out of steam. Thursday's action saw Bitcoin blow past its record and soar to $2,800 in just a few hours, but now it's plunging. Here's what the cryptocurrency is all about.

Oil is getting whacked even after OPEC agreed to extend production cuts.

In deal news, a bunch of cycling enthusiasts just helped Peloton Cycle raise $325 million — betting it could be "the Apple of fitness."

Everyone is missing a critical point about Sears' first quarter profit. 

Ford's new CEO just named some key execs on his team. Tesla is pushing the insurance industry to prepare for massive disruption. In related news, Morgan Stanley's latest prediction about the future of self-driving cars should terrify automakers.

A Swiss watchmaker just created a $26,900 timepiece that looks exactly like an Apple Watch.

Lastly, a Montauk estate is on the market for $48 million — 7,600% more than what its owners paid for it.

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Bitcoin is a currency just like the US dollar or Mexican peso. It's also back in the headlines after soaring in value. One bitcoin was worth $2,800 on May 25, up from $1,200 at the end of April.

In countries that accept it, you can buy groceries and clothes just as you would with the local currency. Only bitcoin is entirely digital; no one is carrying actual bitcoins around in their pocket.

Bitcoin is divorced from governments and central banks. It's organized through a network known as a blockchain, which is basically an online ledger that keeps a secure record of each transaction all in one place. Every time anyone buys or sells bitcoin, the swap gets logged. Several hundred of these back-and-forths make up a block.

No one controls these blocks, because blockchains are decentralized across every computer that has a bitcoin wallet, which you only get if you buy bitcoin.

Why bother using it?

True to its origins as an open, decentralized currency, bitcoin is meant to be a quicker, cheaper, and more reliable form of payment than money tied to individual countries. In addition, it's the only form of money users can theoretically "mine" themselves, if they (and their computers) have the ability.

But even for those who don't discover using their own high-powered computers, anyone can buy and sell bitcoin, typically through online exchanges like Coinbase or LocalBitcoins.  

A 2015 survey showed bitcoin users tend to be overwhelmingly white and male, but of varying incomes. The people with the most bitcoins are more likely to be using it for illegal purposes.

Each bitcoin also has a complicated ID code, known as a hexadecimal code, that is many times more difficult to steal than someone's credit card information. And since there is a finite number to be accounted for, there is less of a chance bitcoin or fractions of a bitcoin will go missing. 

But while fraudulent credit card purchases are reversible, bitcoin transactions are not.

21 million

Bitcoin is also unique in that there are a finite number of them: 21 million. Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin's enigmatic founder, arrived at that number by assuming people would discover, or "mine," a set number of blocks of transactions on a daily basis.

Every four years, the number of bitcoins released relative to the previous cycle gets cut in half, as does the reward to miners for discovering new blocks. (The reward right now is 12.5 bitcoin.) As a result, the number of bitcoin in circulation will approach 21 million, but never hit it.

This also means bitcoin never experiences inflation. Unlike US dollars, whose buying power the Fed can dilute by printing more of them, there simply won't be more bitcoin available in the future. That has worried some skeptics, as it means a hack could be catastrophic in wiping out people's bitcoin wallets, with less hope for reimbursement.

The future of bitcoin

Historically, the currency has been extremely volatile. But go by its recent boom — and a forecast by Snapchat's first investor, Jeremy Liew, that it will hit $500,000 by 2030 — and nabbing even a fraction of a bitcoin starts to look a lot more enticing.

Bitcoin users predict 94% of all bitcoin will have been released by 2024. As the total number creeps toward the 21 million mark, many suspect the profits miners once made creating new blocks will become so low they'll become negligible. But with more bitcoin in circulation, people also expect transaction fees to rise, possibly making up the difference.

SEE ALSO: Bitcoin just hit an all-time high — here's how you buy and sell it

DON'T MISS: What is blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin?

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NOW WATCH: Bitcoin isn't 100 percent anonymous — here's how to further hide your purchases

A Michigan LocalBitcoins trader plead guilty last week to operating an unlicensed money services business.

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Print section Print Headline:  One bitcoin is worth twice as much as an ounce of gold Print Fly Title:  The bitcoin bubble UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  How to improve the health of the ocean Fly Title:  Bitcoin booms Fans of bitcoin, a crypto-currency, have long called it digital gold. Now this sounds like an insult: continuing its stellar rise, and adding more than 30% to its value in just a week, one bitcoin is worth more than $2,600, over twice as much as an ounce of gold. As The Economist went to press all bitcoins in circulation were worth over $43bn. A sum of $1,000 invested in bitcoins in 2010 would now be worth nearly $36m. Other crypto-currencies are also marching upward: together this week they were worth $87bn. But if the history of gold is any guide, what goes up will come down—and then go up again. Rubric:  Crypto-currencies keep on soaring Article body images:  ...

Print section Print Headline:  One bitcoin is worth twice as much as an ounce of gold Print Fly Title:  The bitcoin bubble UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  How to improve the health of the ocean Fly Title:  Bitcoin booms Fans of bitcoin, a crypto-currency, have long called it digital gold. Now this sounds like an insult: continuing its stellar rise, and adding more than 30% to its value in just a week, one bitcoin is worth more than $2,600, over twice as much as an ounce of gold. As The Economist went to press all bitcoins in circulation were worth over $43bn. A sum of $1,000 invested in bitcoins in 2010 would now be worth nearly $36m. Other crypto-currencies are also marching upward: together this week they were worth $87bn. But if the history of gold is any guide, what goes up will come down—and then go up again. Rubric:  Crypto-currencies keep on soaring Article body images:  ...

Many predicted that the world would soon lose interest in bitcoin. Yet, eight years after its inception, its surprisingly robust Blockchain tech and prominence on the darkweb has led to the cryptocurrency trading at an all time high. This success has...

 There’s been much talk of ICOs — initial coin offerings — amid the rising value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. Now the industry is about to see its first ‘big name’ move into the space after Kik announced plans to introduce its own cryptocurrency via a token sale. Messaging app Kik is particular popular among teens and young people in… Read More

The bitcoin rally just keeps going. Thursday's action has run bitcoin above $2,500, $2,600, and $2,700 for the first time. Currently, the cryptocurrency trades up 11.2%, or $270, at $2,682 a coin. It has gained in 27 of the past 30 sessions and has tacked on more than 130% over that time. 

Bitcoin has climbed aout 20% since Tuesday's close, propelled by news that the Digital Currency Group, representing 56 companies in 21 countries, reached a scaling agreement at the Consensus 2017 conference in New York. 

The announcement was the latest bit of good news for the cryptocurrency. In early April, Japan announced bitcoin had become a legal payment method in the country. Additionally, Ulmart, Russia's largest online retailer, said it would begin accepting bitcoin even though Russia had said it wouldn't explore the cryptocurrency until 2018.

The gains also seem to be boosted by speculation the US Securities and Exchange Commission could overturn its ruling on the Winklevoss twins' bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The SEC was accepting public comment on its decision until May 15, but it hasn't announced whether it will overturn its rejection of the ETF.

Bitcoin has gained more than 180% this year. 

SEE ALSO: The price of Bitcoin just hit an all new high — here's how easy it is to buy your first one

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Here is what you need to know.

The Fed talks balance sheet reduction. Minutes from the May FOMC meeting released on Wednesday showed the Fed plans to unwind its massive balance sheet by gradually increasing limits on the dollar amounts of Treasurys and other securities that would be allowed to run off into maturity each month.

The CBO score for the GOP healthcare bill is out. The plan would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured and undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions, according to an updated score from the Congressional Budget Office.

OPEC agrees to extend production cuts. OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna agreed to extend production cuts by nine months, CNBC reports, citing Reuters.

UK GDP disappoints. The UK's economy grew at a 0.2% clip in the first quarter, according to a second estimate provided by the Office for National Statistics. That was slower than the initial reading of 0.3% growth.

The Chinese yuan hits a 2-month high. Offshore yuan climbed to 6.8651 per dollar, its best since March 28.  

Korea's central bank turns optimistic on its economy. The Bank of Korea held its key interest rate at a record low 1.25% and said, "The Board judges that consumption will likely continue its modest trend of growth, but that the trends of improvement in exports and investment should expand compared to the April forecasts."

Bitcoin is on fire. The cryptocurrency trades up 10.6% at $2,692 a coin. It has gained 178% so far in 2017. 

Stock markets around the world are up. China's Shanghai Composite (+1.4%) led the overnight surge while France's CAC (+0.4%) paces the gains in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open higher by 0.3% near 2,412.

Earnings reports keep coming. Best Buy, Burlington Stores, and Dollar Tree report ahead of the opening bell while Costco, Deckers Outdoor, and GameStop will release their quarterly results after markets close.

US economic is limited. Initial claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is unchanged at 2.25%. 

Join the conversation about this story »

Here is what you need to know.

The Fed talks balance-sheet reduction. Minutes from the May Federal Open Market Committee meeting released Wednesday show the Federal Reserve plans to unwind its massive balance sheet by gradually increasing limits on the dollar amounts of Treasurys and other securities that will be allowed to run off into maturity each month.

The CBO score for the GOP healthcare bill is out. The American Health Care Act would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured than projected under the Affordable Care Act and undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions, according to an updated estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

OPEC reportedly agrees to extend production cuts. OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna agreed to extend production cuts by nine months, Bloomberg says.

UK GDP disappoints. The UK's economy grew at a 0.2% clip in the first quarter, according to a second estimate provided by the Office for National Statistics. That was slower than the initial reading of 0.3% growth.

The Chinese yuan hits a 2-month high. Offshore yuan climbed to 6.8651 per dollar, its best since March 28.

Korea's central bank turns optimistic on its economy. The Bank of Korea held its key interest rate at a record-low 1.25% and said, "The Board judges that consumption will likely continue its modest trend of growth, but that the trends of improvement in exports and investment should expand compared to the April forecasts."

Bitcoin is on fire. The cryptocurrency trades up by 10.6% at $2,692 a coin. It has gained 178% in 2017.

Stock markets around the world are up. China's Shanghai Composite (+1.4%) led the overnight surge, while France's CAC (+0.4%) paces the gains in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open higher by 0.3% near 2,412.

Earnings reports keep coming. Best Buy, Burlington Stores, Dollar Tree, and Sears report ahead of the opening bell, while Costco, Deckers Outdoor, and GameStop will release their quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data is limited. Initial claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is unchanged at 2.25%.

Join the conversation about this story »