S&P 500 Tops Record, Nears 2,000 Amid Confidence in Fed
Optimism that the Federal Reserve is committed to supporting a strengthening economy sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to an all-time high and within eight points of the 2,000 milestone.
The S&P 500 jumped 0.3 percent to a record 1,992.37 at 4 p.m. in New York, rising for a fourth day, the longest streak in two months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 60.36 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,039.49.
The gains are coming after the S&P 500 started August with the worst weekly decline in more than two years. The S&P 500 has rebounded 4.3 percent from a two-month low on Aug. 7.
The S&P 500 has almost tripled since its March 2009 low, helped by three rounds of Fed stimulus, coupled with better-than-projected corporate earnings. The S&P 500 has not had a decline of 10 percent in almost three years.
The market’s latest rebound was the sixth in two years where equities needed less than two weeks to recover after a drop of 2 percent or more, according to data compiled by Sundial Capital Research Inc.
Investors are betting that a soft touch on monetary policy will continue to suppress stock volatility, pouring a record stretch of cash into an exchange-traded note that rallies as calm returns to equities.
Source: Bloomberg
