By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The S&P 500 continued its run of record highs Thursday as big tech racked up gains after selling in bonds pushed yields lower following weaker labor market data and dovish remarks from Federal Reserve Jerome Powell.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, after hitting an intraday record high of 4,098.80, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.10%, or 34 points, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.95%.
Chairman Powell, appearing during a virtual IMF panel discussion on Thursday, laid out the case for the central bank to keep its monetary spigot wide open, cooling investor expectations the central bank will be forced to act sooner-than-expected.
"There is a brighter outlook for the U.S. economy from fiscal support, vaccines, but unevenness in recovery is a serious issue," Powell said as he reiterated the current pace of the Fed's monthly bond buying will continue. "We want to see a string of months like the March jobs report to see progress."
The fed chief's dovish comments echoed the tone of the Fed's March monetary policy meeting minutes released Wednesday. Fed policymakers acknowledged progress on the economy, but continued to back the ongoing pace of monetary support, saying substantial progress on the recovery will likely take "some time," the minutes showed.
The labor market, meanwhile, continue to offer some credence to the Fed's chief's ongoing cautious outlook as weekly jobless claims increased more than expected, sending U.S. bond yields lower and paving the way for big tech to continue its climb.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) continued to rack up gains.
Banks, however, lagged the broader market rally as stuttering bond yields dented sentiment on the interest-rate sensitive sector ahead of earnings from major Wall Street banks next week.
JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) was higher, while Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) remained below the flat line.
In other news, General Motors (NYSE:GM) fell 1% as the global chip shortage forced the automaker to halt production at several factories.