Nasdaq breaks 15-year record; oil up on Middle East worry

By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Thursday, with the Nasdaq index hitting a record closing high, as corporate earnings and a rise in energy shares overshadowed soft U.S. economic data, while oil prices climbed to the highest levels of the year. The gains pushed the Nasdaq above a record set in March 2000, the height of the dot-com boom. "It has the potential to go up, absent some external event that I can't predict." said Walter Price, senior portfolio