Dow, S&P 500 Climb To New Record Closing Highs

After turning in a strong performance to kick off the first full trading week of the new year, stocks saw further upside during trading on Tuesday. With the continued upward move, the Dow and the S&P 500 reached new record closing highs.

The major averages ended the day just off their highs of the session. The Dow jumped 484.90 points or 1.0 percent to 49,462.08, the Nasdaq climbed 151.35 points or 0.7 percent to 23,547.17 and the S&P 500 rose 42.77 points or 0.6 percent to 6,944.82.

The Dow benefitted from a sharp increase by shares of Amazon (AMZN), with the online retail giant surging by 3.4 percent.

Amazon jumped to a new record closing high after announcing it is rolling out Alexa.com to Alexa+ Early Access customers in what is seen as an effort to more directly compete with ChatGPT and Gemini.

Strong gains by Amgen (AMZN), Salesforce (CRM) and IBM Corp. (IBM) also contributed to the jump by the blue chip index.

The continued advance by the broader markets came despite a lack of major catalysts, as traders look ahead to the release of several key U.S. economic reports in the coming days.

Trading on Wednesday may be impacted by reaction to reports on private sector employment, job openings and service sector activity.

However, the highlight of the week is likely to be the release of the Labor Department’s closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.

The data could impact the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve’s next monetary policy meeting later this month.

While the Fed is likely to leave rates unchanged at its January 27-28 meeting, the central bank is widely expected to cut rates by at least another quarter point in the coming months.

Sector News

Computer hardware stocks turned in some of the market’s best performances on the day, with the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index soaring by 4.3 percent.

A sharp increase by the price of gold also contributed to substantial strength among gold stocks, as reflected by the 4.1 percent surge by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index.

Biotechnology stocks also saw considerable strength on the day, resulting in a 3.0 percent jump by the NSYE Arca Biotechnology Index.

Semiconductor, retail and healthcare stocks also showed notable moves to the upside, while significant weakness was visible among energy stocks amid a pullback by the price of crude oil.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher during trading on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index shot up by 1.3 percent, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index surged by 1.5 percent.

The major European markets have also moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index jumped by 1.2 percent, the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.3 percent and the German DAX Index crept up by 0.1 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries gave back ground following the rebound seen in the previous session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose 1.6 basis points to 4.181 percent.

Business News