S&P 500 ends at record on jobless data, ECB

But overall sentiment cautious ahead of payroll data

The S&P 500 hit a fresh intraday record high on Friday after more jobs than expected were created in February and January's figure was revised higher, with traders keeping an eye on lingering tensions in Ukraine.

The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, ended up 2.3% at 14.21.The VIX generally moves inversely to the performance of the S&P 500 and is often used to hedge against a market decline.

Trading volume was also lower than average, with about 6.4 billion shares traded on US exchanges, according to data from BATS Global Markets, below the daily average of about 7 billion in the past month.

"We had a bit of a selloff in midday session and late afternoon, but the fact the S&P 500 managed to set another record shows how much resistance this market has to geopolitical overhang that is clearly not over, resistance to bad news," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Asset Management in Bedford Hills, New York.

Thursday's milestone marked the S&P 500's fourth record closing high over the past six sessions.

Weekly applications for US unemployment insurance fell to 323,000, the lowest in three months, a sign of strength in a labor market that has been hobbled by severe weather. New orders for US factory goods, however, fell more than expected in January and shipments also slipped, adding to signs of a recent slowdown in manufacturing activity.

Friday's nonfarm payrolls report, due at 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT), is likely to show job growth in the United States picked up enough in February to encourage the Federal Reserve to continue scaling back its monetary stimulus. But the gain was likely to be tepid, given the unrelentingly harsh winter.

The day's biggest gainers were stocks in basic materials, financial and industrial sectors, often associated with strong economic fundamentals. The S&P basic materials index was up 0.4%, the S&P financial index was up 0.7% and the S&P industrials index was up 0.6%.

But the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2%, led lower by Staples , which lost 15.3% to $11.35. The largest US office supplies retailer forecast a decline in sales. Staples also said it would close up to 225 stores in the United States and Canada by 2015.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 40.3 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 16,462.19, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 4.01 points, or 0.21 per cent, to 1,881.04 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 9.391 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 4,361.517.

Crimea's parliament voted to join Russia and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum for 10 days' time on the decision in a dramatic escalation of the crisis in the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula.

US President Barack Obama took steps to punish those involved in threatening Ukraine while European Union leaders agreed to suspend visa and investment talks with Russia.

An index of Moscow stocks lost more than 2% after the vote in Crimea, but pared the losses and closed down 1%. The rouble weakened 0.3% versus the US dollar. A US-traded Russian ETF fell 1.1% to $23.37.

The European Central Bank decided not to take any action at its meeting on Thursday because economic and monetary conditions had not changed enough to warrant it. The euro hit its highest level against the US dollar since late December.

Among individual stocks, Costco Wholesale Corp dropped 2.8% to $113.26 after the warehouse retailer reported a bigger-than-expected 15% decline in quarterly profit as unusually deep discounting in the holiday shopping season hurt margins.