Wall Street stays on record streak

S&P 500 ends the holiday-shortened week up 1.4% as Dow Jones gains 1.5%

The US stock market partying like it’s 1999. For the first time since that year, the four major benchmark indexes hit all-time highs, thanks to an ongoing post-election rally that has lasted for three weeks and lifted almost everything from banks to industrials to small-cap stocks.

Investors kept piling into equities for the week, with the amount of money deposited to exchange traded funds since the November 8 vote accounting for almost 40 per cent of this year’s total.

About $1 trillion is (Dh3.67 trillion) has been added to equity values since Donald Trump’s victory, driven by speculation that his plans to cut taxes and boost fiscal spending will help corporate profits rebound.

“We’re continuing the slow incremental march higher with earnings-per-share,” Brian Jacobsen, the chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management LLC, told Bloomberg Television.

The S&P 500 Index ended the holiday-shortened week up 1.4 per cent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.5 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.5 per cent and the Russell 2000 added 2.4 per cent to top off a 15-day, 16 per cent rally.

With equities booming, investors are now showing some fear of missing out on the stock market action. They added more than $3 billion to US equity ETFs during the week, bringing the flurry of inflows to more than $40 billion over the past three weeks, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

At the same time, demand for protection against losses is collapsing. The CBOE Volatility Index slipped for a third-week, extending its drop to 44 per cent from its peak prior to the election. At 12.4, the fear gauge, know as VIX, is about one-third below its historic average.