Wall St. closes higher; Nasdaq up for sixth straight day

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks closed higher on Thursday, with the Nasdaq rising for a sixth straight day, as investors looked past disappointing data on consumer spending, chalking the weakness up to weather instead of weaker fundamentals. The Nasdaq is up about 5.7 percent over the past six sessions, its best six-day advance since December 2011. Both the Dow and S&P 500 rose for the fifth session out of the last six. Indexes opened lower but gained throughout the session, although Cisco Systems , which sank after warning about a slump in revenue, limited the Dow's advance.