Tech stocks and growing confidence in the job market helped to propel the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average to record highs Monday.
The S&P 500 gained 0.4% to finish at 2,078.54. The Dow Jones rose 155 points, or 0.9%, to end the day at 17,959.44.
The U.S. market rose broadly on Monday after posting huge gains to close out the previous week, effectively rebounding from a seven-day sell-off earlier this month.
Early in the day, the Gallup polling organization reported that confidence in the job market had hit its highest point since the recession. Meanwhile. Investors seemed to shrug off the news that existing home sales in the U.S. dropped 6.1% in November.
Facebook (FB) and Intel (INTC) both shot up by roughly 2% on Monday as tech companies helped spur the day’s rally.
Markets got a major boost last week when the Federal Reserve said it would take a patient, measured approach to its planned interest rate hike coming at some point in 2015.
The S&P 500 recent performance is a major turnaround from the market retreat earlier this month, when the index dipped below the 2,000-point mark. The index is up more than 100 points, or 5.4%, since the middle of last week, when the market saw some of its biggest gains in years.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is also riding a huge turnaround from previous weeks with more than 888 points gained — a 5.2% swing — since last Wednesday. The Dow Jones is tantalizingly close to crossing for the first time the 18,000-point mark — a symbolic milestone the index approached two weeks ago before the market began to sink.
The Nasdaq composite also recorded its fourth-straight day of gains, rising 16 points, or 0.3%, to finish Monday at 4,781.42. The tech-heavy index is also up more than 5% since the middle of last week and has gained more than 230 points over that period.