By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The S&P 500 and Nasdaq climbed to all-time highs Monday, led by energy as oil prices snapped their longest losing streak 2019, while megacap tech made a strong start to the week.
The S&P 500 rose 1% and hit an intraday record of 4,490, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7%, or 250 points, the Nasdaq was up 1.6%, after hitting an intraday record of 14,963.5.
Energy rallied more than 3% as oil prices rebounded from near-three month lows, supported by a weaker dollar, and positive pandemic news as China.
China, the world's largest energy consumer, reported no new Covid-19 cases for the first time since July, easing investor fears of a prolonged setback for travel and energy demand.
"The coming weeks will reveal whether the travel restrictions that have been imposed in China and other Asia-Pacific countries will really have such an impact on fuel demand as last week‘s price performance suggests," Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) said in a note.
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN), and APA Corporation (NASDAQ:APA) were the among the top gainers in energy, with the latter up nearly 7%.
Technology stocks, up 1%, also supported the broader market melt-up as megcap tech continued to add to gains from the tail-end of last week.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), and Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) were up more than 1%. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was roughly flat.
A climb in chip stocks also bolstered tech as Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) hit record highs amid ongoing momentum continues following the chipmaker's better-than-expected quarterly results last week,
Vaccine stocks were also in the greed after the US Food and Drug Administration granted Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX)'s COVID-19 vaccine full approval, sending their shares up more than 2% and 9%, respectively.
Pfizer also announced a $2.3 billion deal to buy cancer drug maker Trillium Therapeutics (TSX:TRIL), sending the latter's shares more than 180% higher.
On the economic front, investors digested mixed economic data as manufacturing activity fell short expectations, while home sales unexpectedly increased.
The IHS Markit US Manufacturing PMI fell to a reading of 61.2 in August from 63.4 in July, missing economists' estimates of 62.5.
Existing home sales rose 2% in July against expectations for a small downtick.
"[W]e continue to see the current soft patch in housing as a pause that will ultimately elongate the housing cycle," Jefferies (NYSE:JEF) said, pointing to a lack of supply that is expected to improve in 2022.
The record session on Wall Street comes just days before annual symposium held in Jackson Hole, with Chairman Powell scheduled to speak on Friday. Investor attention will focus on any new clues on the Fed's plan to begin scaling back its monthly bond purchases.