Stocks edge up to new record highs

U.S. stock indexes edged up further into record territory Monday after more signs that the economy is growing in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold way that investors love.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index ticked up 3.15 points, or 0.1%, to 2,943.03. Big gains for banks led the way on hopes for bigger profits from making loans, but losses for high-dividend stocks held indexes in check.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 11.06, or less than 0.1%, to 26,554.39. The Nasdaq composite rose 15.46, or 0.2%, to 8,161.85. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at record highs.

After rocketing higher in the first few months of the year, the S&P 500 has seen its momentum moderate in recent weeks. Trading has remained relatively quiet, as reports on the economy and corporate profits come in better than analysts expected and give investors further confidence that the economy can avoid a recession.

“I think it’s healthy to see these sideways or even slightly down days,” said Nate Thooft, senior portfolio manager at Manulife Asset Management. “This is just digesting the big move we had earlier in the year.”

The S&P 500 is up 17.4% so far in 2019, and it has more than erased its nearly 20% drop from late last year when worries were high that the Federal Reserve could cause a recession by raising interest rates too quickly.

“We’re kind of in complacency land, Goldilocks land,” Thooft said. “That in itself is a little bit alarming, but I don’t see what changes it either.”

Helping to spur Monday’s gains was a report from the Commerce Department that showed a U.S. economy that’s growing, but not at too hot a pace. Consumer spending jumped 0.9% in March, the biggest gain in nearly a decade. But the same report also showed that the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of price changes remains well below its target.

Treasury yields rose with the encouraging data on consumer spending, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 2.52% from 2.50%.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America both rose 1.4%.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 20 cents to $63.50 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 11 cents to $72.04 a barrel.

Natural gas rose a penny to $2.59 per 1,000 cubic feet. Heating oil was virtually flat at $2.05 a gallon. Wholesale gasoline fell 2 cents to $2.08 a gallon.

Gold fell $7.30 to $1,281.50 an ounce. Silver fell 16 cents to $14.93 an ounce. Copper was virtually flat at $2.90 a pound.

The dollar rose to 111.71 Japanese yen from 111.61 yen. The euro rose to $1.1183 from $1.1154.