Stocks get back half of losses from last week

Stocks finished solidly higher Monday on Wall Street as the market clawed back half its losses from last week.

The S&P 500 rose 1.5% after having been down 0.3%. The market rallied after a much healthier-than-expected report on the housing market put investors in a buying mood. Technology, industrial and communications stocks accounted for much of the gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.3%, the Nasdaq composite added 1.2%, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies picked up a healthy 3.1% to make up for all of its loss from last week.

Gains for Boeing and Apple in particular helped to lift Wall Street indexes. Boeing jumped 14.4%, its best day in more than two months. The company’s troubled 737 Max jet looks set to begin test flights soon. Apple added 2.3% as customers keep buying its products regardless of whether they’re quarantined.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury held steady at 0.63%.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil for August delivery rose $1.21 to settle at $39.70 a barrel. Brent crude oil for August delivery rose 69 cents to $41.71 a barrel.

The pickup in U.S. stocks after a weekly loss marks the latest choppy move for markets around the world, which have been swinging back and forth in recent weeks as investors hope for a relatively quick economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. That hope is balanced against worry as an increase in confirmed new cases forces some businesses to close their doors again.

“It’s just another day of normal volatility, its unfortunately what we’re living with now,” said Mark Litzerman, head of global portfolio management at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.