5 Dow stocks dazzle in record-breaking run

Big gains from a handful of big-name stocks helped propel the Dow to record-breaking heights on Tuesday.

Five stocks in the Dow Jones industrial average, including McDonald's (MCD), Home Depot (HD) and insurer UnitedHealth (UNH), are the biggest drivers, according to a Paste BN analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Each of these stocks has contributed more than 100 points to the market measure since it hit its last high on May 19, 2015. These five stocks together added nearly 700 points to the Dow making them a top driver of the Dow's 35-point gain from its last peak and enough to counteract the 13 Dow stocks that have fallen since then. The Dow jumped more than 120 points Tuesday to 18,348, pushing past the 18,312.39 high set in 2015.

Seeing the Dow hit new highs is the latest confirmation of the power of this raging bull market. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index pushed further into record territory Tuesday after hitting a new closing high Monday. The S&P 500 was up another 0.7%. But the fact that many of the winners hail from defensive industries like health care shows that while markets are hitting highs, investors are still nervous, says Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. "U.S. equity markets are breaking records led by defensive companies against a backdrop of lower interest rates," Ablin says. "To me, this seems like investors are stocking up on canned goods before a storm."

Home Depot, riding a home-building and remodeling boom powered by perpetually low interest rates, has been the darling of the Dow. The stock is up 20% from the Dow's former high and has added 155 Dow points since then. Investors have high hopes for the company's profit power. Analysts are calling for the company to earn an adjusted $1.97 a share in the quarter ended in July, up 15% from the same period last year. Such rapid growth from a large company is in stark contrast to the rest of the S&P 500, which is expected to see adjusted profit fall roughly 5% during the quarter.

Another big winner is McDonald's, which has benefited from the successful launch of offering breakfast items all day. The company has seen its stock soar 21.4% from the Dow's last high, adding nearly 150 points to the measure. Analysts expect its profit to start growing again, calling for nearly 8% higher adjusted second-quarter profit. That would be the third-straight quarter of profit growth and a welcome change from the 8% decline in the second quarter of 2015. The company and stock are being driven by "reorganization, new growth initiatives (and the) same-store sales turnaround," says John Staszak, analyst at Argus Research.

Several health care stocks have lit it up, too, including Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and UnitedHealth. Investors' interest in defensive stocks that pay stable dividends has been a recurring theme in the bull, which plays into health care's wheelhouse. Even if the economy were to cool, health care demand remains fairly stable. Shares of J&J and UnitedHealth are up 18.2% and 16% respectively from the market's last high. UnitedHealth is currently yielding 1.8% and J&J yields a market-beating 2.6%.

Now that the Dow and S&P 500 have retaken their highs, that leaves just the tech-heavy Nasdaq — still roughly 4% below its high — to catch up. But there are plenty of big gains for investors to enjoy while they're waiting on tech.