Stocks wrap up best August in decades

Wall Street bagged its best August in more than 30 years on Monday, a month that saw the three major U.S. indexes notch new milestones as investors looked past the pandemic and kept focus on positive economic markers.

Trading was mixed, with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index slipping 0.2 percent, to 3,500.31, and the Dow Jones industrial average falling 0.8 percent, to 28,430.05. The broad S&P 500 index closed out the month 7 percent ahead for its best August since 1986. It set record highs the past six trading days.

Buoyed by high-performing tech companies, the Nasdaq composite index swelled 0.7 percent, to 11,775.46. It added 9.6 percent during the month.

Improving labor numbers and moves toward looser monetary policy by the Federal Reserve have fueled optimism on Wall Street, even as the wait continues for a coronavirus vaccine and full economic recovery.

The three major U.S. indexes have erased their losses for the year, wiping the devastating plunge in prices triggered by the spread of the coronavirus in March putting an end to the shortest bear market in U.S. history.

Stocks may have snapped back, but the labor market remains deeply scarred by the losses brought on by the pandemic.

On Thursday, the Labor Department said another 1 million Americans filed jobless claims last week. Now, roughly 27 million are receiving some form of unemployment aid, as many of the temporary job losses turned permanent. Last week, several major companies announced layoffs, including Coca-Cola, Salesforce, American Airlines, Bed Bath & Beyond and MGM Resorts.

The S&P 500 notched a record high seven times in August, surpassing the pre-coronavirus peak many times over. But the rebound has been hitched to the remarkable growth of the tech giants, whose gargantuan market valuations have given them outsize influence on Wall Street.

Just six technology companies — Netflix, Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon and Apple — account for more than one-quarter of the S&P’s value. Without them, the index would still be in negative territory.

The last day of August also marks the first day of trading for a newly reconfigured Dow. The inand dex, which tracks 30 large publicly traded companies, has removed three stocks from its list and added three others. Oil giant ExxonMobil, pharmaceutical company Pfizer, and the aerospace and defense manufacturer Raytheon Technologies have left. In their place the index has added Salesforce, a cloud computing company; Amgen, a biotechnology firm; and Honeywell International, an aerospace and industrial manufacturer.

Monday was the first trading session to include Apple’s stock split. Tesla, another company whose stock price has surged, has also split its stock.