Wall Street rallied Monday to claw back most of the losses from its slow start to the year.
- The S&P 500 S&P 500 rose 66.30 points, or 1.4%, to 4,763.54 to pull within 1% of its all-time high.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 216.90 points, 0.6%, to 37,683.01.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 319.70 points, or 2.2%, to 14,843.77.
Boeing dragged on the Dow in its first trading after one of its jets
suffered an inflight blowout over Oregon, the
AP reports. It fell 8%. Spirit AeroSystems, which builds fuselages and other parts for Boeing, lost 11.1%.
Stocks of oil-and-gas companies were also heavy weights after Saudi Arabia gave indications of potentially weak demand for crude. Exxon Mobil fell 1.7%, and Halliburton lost 2.1% as a barrel of US crude tumbled $3.04 to $70.77. But gains for Big Tech stocks and much of the rest of the market overshadowed those losses. They rose as Treasury yields eased. Nvidia rose 6.4% after announcing new products and describing how it's helping to insert AI in everything from autonomous robots to the discovery of new drugs. Apple, meanwhile, rose 2.4% to bounce back from its worst week since September. They were the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500, along with Microsoft and Amazon.
Commercial Metals also jumped 7.5% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It said construction activity is healthy in North America, driving demand for steel and helping to offset weaker conditions in Europe. More earnings results will be arriving at the end of the week. Delta Air Lines, JPMorgan Chase, and UnitedHealth Group will be among the companies on Friday kicking off the S&P 500's reporting season for the final three months of 2023.
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The highlight of the week may be Thursday's release of the latest inflation data for US consumers. A cooldown there has ignited hope on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve will soon see enough improvement to not only halt its hikes to interest rates but begin cutting them.The Fed has already hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001, which grinds down on the economy and hurts prices for investments, in hopes of conquering high inflation. The Fed said last month it's seen improvement, and Wall Street's expectation is for it start cutting rates as soon as March.
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