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S&P 500 on Cusp of Historic 4,000 Level as Tech Leads Advance

Published 03/31/2021, 01:13 PM
Updated 03/31/2021, 03:20 PM
© Reuters.

© Reuters.

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 remained close to its intraday record high on Wednesday, led by a jump in growth stocks as investors swooped in to take advantage of beaten down tech stocks.

The S&P 500 rose 0.80%, easing from its record intraday high of 3,994.03, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.10%, or 33 points, the Nasdaq Composite was up 2.08%.

Tech is down 5% from its recent February high, but is set to end the quarter in the green as investors appeared to renew their bets on the high-flying sector ahead of the next round of quarterly reports.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), with latter getting an extra boost following an upgrade from UBS.

Microsoft racked up gains into the close after winning a 10-year contract from the U.S. Army worth a about $22 billion to deliver 120,000 devices based on its HoloLens augmented-reality headset, CNBC reported.

But it wasn't only megacap tech that attracted a wave of buying. Chip stocks climbed 3% led by a jump in Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) as Bernstein talked up the growth prospects for the sector.

Bernstein initiated coverage on Applied Materials at outperform, betting that "growth trends in the underlying semi market [are] likely to remain positive over the long term."

Consumer discretionary stocks also played a role in pushing the broader market to record intraday highs, powered by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and apparel company Phillips-Van Heusen Corp.

PVH Corp (NYSE:PVH) jumped 6% despite the company reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue late-Tuesday that fell short of Wall Street estimates.

The economic backdrop, meanwhile, continues to spur investor optimism as the economy created 515,000 private jobs last month, just shy of the 550,000 expected, but the gain serves as a good omen for nonfarm payrolls report due Friday.

The economy could potentially be in line to receive another stimulus-led boost as President Joe Biden is set to unveil a $2 trillion two-part stimulus plan later on Wednesday. The first part will focus on infrastructure and clean energy, and a second will be focused on domestic and social issues.

But there are already grumbles from lawmakers on the opposite side of the political aisle, who are wary of further spending -- following $5.7 trillion of Covid-19 relief measures rolled out over the past year -- and are unlikely to back the tax hikes needed to fund the bill.

Energy, down nearly 1%, lagged the broader market's advance as oil prices fell below $60 a barrel on fears over global demand after France widen lockdowns nationwide following a spike in Covid-19 hospitalizations. The swing lower in oil comes ahead of OPEC's decision on output quotas for May. Many are expecting no change to output.

Oil prices were also swayed by data showing U.S. weekly inventories slipped by 876,000 barrels last week, confounding economists' forecast for a build of 107,000 barrels.

Latest comments

lol
I sold half of my positions.
probably America has the best times right now
It's always the best time in America.
 and the best times still to come, especially with creepy sloppy and kamala lol
The peak has almost been reached. Business tax increases are included in the infrastructure package. I'm ready to load up on XOUT once the SP500 hits 2200.
Hopefully this is the top and ir crashes to 2200 by june.
only thing material is that this move took place while so you can place a rat in my tent and trade while my firm is not in the market.
Go back to tent and rest
bargain hunting....beaten down!! LMFAO!
cusp my ****
always the same play with the people hunt more bears then ATH , 2021-2022-2023. this market is FED and they dont want crash with Biden ,  bullish
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