Monday’s Stock Market Close: US Equities Rise, Boosted By Strength In Tech Names

U.S. stocks rose on Monday, building on last week’s gains, as tech names lead the way.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 459.67 points to 26,287.03, while the S&P 500 rose 49.71 points to 3,179.72 and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 226.02 points to 10,433.65.

Monday’s volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 3.95 billion shares with 2,034 issues advancing, 95 setting new highs, and 963 declining, with three stocks setting new lows .

Active movers were led by Nio Inc. (NIO), AYRO Inc. (AYRO) and Electrameccanica Vehicles Corp. (SOLO).

Traders likely were buoyed by a number of big acquisitions. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) bought the natural gas assets from Dominion Energy (D) for about $10 billion including debt. Uber (UBER) shares jumped 5.96% as it agreed to buy food-delivery app Postmates for $2.65 billion.

Shares of Amazon (AMZN) jumped 5.77% closing at above $3,000 per share for the first time.

The Institute of Supply Management said its Nonmanufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 57.1% in June, up from 45.5% last month.

“The economy is doing a lot better than most of the economists think,” said Jeff Saut, chief investment strategist at Capital Wealth Planning. “We may stall here for a while into the fall, into September, October, November, but I think you’re going to get a rocket ship coming in the fall of this year...I think the S&P 500 is going to trade above 4,000.”

Meanwhile, cases of covid-19 continue spiking. On Monday, the state of Arizona passed 100,000 infections. Texas and Florida have also seen a spike in covid-19 cases.

"We are currently experiencing a spike in Covid-19 cases, particularly in the sunbelt states that were in the vanguard of loosening social distancing restrictions to facilitate the reopening of their economies," said Marc Chaikin, CEO of Chaikin Analytics. "That reopening momentum has been halted by the spike in Covid-19 cases and the temptation to translate this into a bearish outlook for stocks is strong. Fatalities have not spiked, however, but are a lagging indicator. Thus the next two weeks are critical for a number of reasons."

Michael McCarthy, a markets strategist at CMC Markets Plc in Sydney, concurred: “The willingness of investors to look through the current disruption to an anticipated recovery this quarter is imperiled by still rising virus infection rates.”

Overnight in Asia markets finished higher, as China’s Shanghai Composite index surged 5.71%; Japan’s Nikkei-225 jumped 1.83%; and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng exchange climbed 3.81%.

In Europe markets finished higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 2.09%, while France’s CAC-40 gained 1.49% and Germany’s DAX jumped 1.64%.

Crude oil futures fell 0.22% at $40.56 per barrel, Brent crude edged down 0.16% at $43.03. Gold futures gained 0.28%.

The euro rose 0.57% at $1.1313 while the pound sterling edged up 0.1% at $1.2495.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose 2.24% to 0.684% while yield on the 30-year Treasury climbed 0.98% to 1.443%.