Wall Street continues on its upward course

NEW YORK — The market rally got back on track Wednesday after more gains for big technology stocks helped pull the S&P 500 to its sixth gain in seven days.

The S&P 500 drifted up and down for most of the day, before a last-hour lift sent it to a gain of 0.8 percent. Treasury yields and oil prices also ticked higher, but caution continued to hang over markets as gold touched its highest price since 2011.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 177.10 points, or 0.7 percent, to 26,067.28, and the

Nasdaq composite gained 148.61, or 1.4 percent, to 10,492.50 to set another record. The S&P 500, which more index funds benchmark themselves against, rose 24.62 to 3,169.94 and is back within 6.4 percent of its record.

Wednesday’s up-and-down trading was reminiscent of the market’s moves over the past month, when Wall Street has largely churned in place.

Optimism is rising about a reopening economy, but worsening coronavirus infection levels across much of the South and West threaten to derail the budding economic improvements.

Several very early indicators on the economy also may be flashing yellow, such as dine-in reservations at restaurants and airport traffic, as some states roll back their reopenings, said Katie Nixon, chief investment officer at Northern Trust Wealth Management.

That could be driving investors back into the comfort of the stocks that have served them so well for years: big tech-oriented stocks.

Such stocks have continued to climb as investors bet they’ll be able to grow almost regardless of what the economy is doing.

Amazon added 2.7 percent, Apple rose 2.3 percent and Microsoft gained 2.2 percent. Because of their immense size, those three stocks alone were responsible for more than half the S&P 500’s gain for the day.

Roughly two in five stocks in the S&P 500 fell Wednesday, with several chemical and construction-related companies taking the hardest hits.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 28 cents to settle at $40.90 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 21 cents to $43.29 a barrel.

The mixed follows trading

Tuesday’s snapback, when the S&P 500 fell 1.1 percent to break a five-day winning streak. The selling accelerated late in the day, and analysts say investors were likely cashing in on recent gains given the uncertainty that lies ahead for markets.

“Up until this time, there’s been a pretty consistent litany of pretty good economic reports, but all of a sudden the reopening seems to have plateaued,” said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial.

“There’s a certain fragility in the consumer confidence data that’s out there right now.”