S&P 500 hits record: Dow, Nasdaq's turn today?
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index hit an all-time closing high Thursday, and now Wall Street is looking for confirmation that the run to new highs is for real and not a one-shot wonder.
That means other major U.S. stock indexes, which are also within striking distance of recent peaks, must join the new-high party. The S&P 500 Thursday rose 22.62 points, or 1.1%, to 2121.10, eclipsing its April 24 record of 2117.69. The Dow Jones industrials jumped 191.75 points to 18,252.54 — or 36 points shy of its March 2 peak of 18,288.63. The Nasdaq composite rallied, too, and is less than 1% below its April 24 record close of 5092.08.
If the other indexes set records, it could confirm that stocks are ready to move higher after a multi-month period of trading sideways. The more stocks that participate in the rally, the better.
Heading into this week, there were rumblings from a handful of Wall Street pros of a coming upside breakout for the U.S. stock market. But the broad large-company S&P 500 kicked off the week with three straight days of losses.
And then, boom, just like that, stocks shot up Thursday, as investors reacted to stabilization in the U.S. government bond market; a rally in multinational stocks thanks to a weaker dollar — which is likely to boost sales and profits from abroad; and a weak reading on inflation at the producer level, which raised hopes that the Federal Reserve could push out its first interest rate hike to later in the year.