Wall Street keeps rallying

NEW YORK

Wall Street’s big rally keeps rolling, and the S&P 500 rose for a fourth straight day Wednesday to sit just 1.7% below its record.

The S&P 500 climbed 21.26 points (0.6%) to 3,327.77, echoing gains for stocks across Europe and Asia. If the U.S. market has just a few more days like that, it will erase the last of the historic losses that it has taken since February because of the coronavirus pandemic and the recession it caused.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 373.05 (1.4%) to 27,201.52, and the Nasdaq composite added 57.23 (0.5%) to set another record at 10,998.40. The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks gained 29.02 (1.9%) to 1,546.24.

Much of Wall Street’s focus this week has been on Washington, where Congress and White House officials are negotiating on more aid for an economy that has shown some improvement but is still hobbling. Investors say such a package is crucial and needs to arrive quickly, with millions of Americans still out of work and $600 in weekly unemployment benefits from the U.S. government having recently expired.

A report on Wednesday suggested that hiring was far weaker last month than economists expected. Private employers added just 167,000 jobs, according to a survey by payroll processor ADP, well below the 1.2 million that economists had forecast.