Bull market riding longest run ever
S&P 500, Nasdaq close at all-time highs
Wall Street ended a week of milestones with a few more yesterday.
The benchmark S&P 500 index closed at an all-time high, just two days after the current bull market in U.S. stocks became the longest in history. The Nasdaq composite and the Russell 2000 indexes also ended the day at all-time highs.
Technology companies, the best-performing sector in the market this year, accounted for much of the gains. The price of oil snapped a seven-week losing streak, finishing this week about 5 percent higher.
The rally capped another solid week for the stock market, which has been riding a wave of strong corporate earnings even amid uncertainty over simmering global trade tensions.
“It appears that the market is really focusing on fundamentals,” said Rob Eschweiler, global investment specialist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “We’re at the very tail end of earnings season, and there’s no other way to characterize the earnings season other than ‘spectacular.’ ”
The S&P 500 index gained 17.71 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,874.69. It has now finished with a weekly gain in seven out of the last eight weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 133.37 points, or 0.5 percent, to 25,790.35. The 30-company average is still below the high it set in January.
The Nasdaq added 67.52 points, or 0.9 percent, to 7,945.98. Its previous alltime high was set on July 25. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 8.62 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,725.67. It also notched back-to-back alltime highs earlier this week.
Since entering a correction in early February, which is defined as a loss of 10 percent or more from a peak, the S&P 500 has mostly crawled higher, with some bumps along the way, thanks to a stillrecovering economy and a boom in corporate profits.