Wall Street reached record highs on Friday, with the S&P 500 surpassing 2,500 points as telecommunications shares rose and technology bounced back after two days of declines.
The S&P 500’s breach of the 2,500-mark came less than four months after it closed above 2,400 and brought 2017’s gain to nearly 12%, Reuters reported.
Professional investors frequently say they see little special significance in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting round-numbers in the hundreds and thousands. But such milestones do affect the sentiment of investors on Main Street, said Phil Blancato, head of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management in New York. “People are concerned about missing out as the market continues to rally,” he said.
The S&P 500 information technology sector rose 0.30%, powered by an Nvidia-led surge in chipmakers, while Apple rose 1.01% in its first gain since unveiling new iPhones on Tuesday.
The semiconductor index surged 1.71%, boosted by Nvidia’s 6.32% jump to a record high after Evercore ISI raised its price target on the stock.
AT&T rose 2.15% and Verizon Communications added 1.44%. Along with T-Mobile, they are offering deals for the newest iPhones that are less generous than in the past.
Wall Street largely shrugged off reports showing an unexpected drop in US retail sales last month and the first drop in industrial output since January, both in part due to the impact of Hurricane Harvey.
“Investors are keeping an eye on the retail sales data, thinking it may be transitory, and are focusing on growth areas such as technology, which is mostly immune to policy decisions in D.C. and has avoided all the global noise,” said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.
Turmoil in Trump White House
US stocks have surged this year, despite turmoil in the White House, doubts about President Donald Trump’s ability to push through his pro-business reforms, uncertainty over the timing of interest rate hikes, and lately, tensions over Pyongyang’s missile tests.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.29% to end at 22,268.34 points, while the S&P 500 gained 0.185 to 2,500.23, records for both. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.3% to 6,448.47.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.76-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.47-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 is trading near 17.6 times expected earnings, down from 17.9 at the end of July but still much higher than its 10-year average of 14.3, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.
Boeing rose 1.53% to a record high after Canaccord Genuity raised its price target for the stock.
Among the laggards was Oracle, which sank 7.67%, its worst day in more than four years after disappointing forecasts for its profit and cloud business.
About 8.5 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges, above the 20-day average of 5.9 billion shares.
Add new comment
Read our comment policy before posting your viewpoints