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(Updates to market close)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Wall Street set record closing
highs on Monday as stimulus prospects and ongoing vaccine
deployment boosted investor optimism over the pace of economic
recovery from the pandemic recession.
All three major U.S. stock indexes advanced, with the S&P
500 and the Dow posting their sixth consecutive gains, their
longest winning streak since August. Small-caps, often seen as
"re-opening plays," outperformed their larger peers.
"Investors are starting to play the economy opening up and
the vaccine starting work," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager
at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. "And maybe they can go
to a baseball game this summer."
Still, the extended rally provides some cause for concern.
"Stocks have been over-valued for much of the past year,"
Nolte added. "And the things we're seeing now, with GameStop and
Bitcoin, those are signs of speculation, not investing."
Oil prices rose to their highest in over a year due to
supply cuts and hopes for a stimulus-driven demand rebound,
giving a solid boost to energy stocks. O/R
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said if Congress approves
the president's $1.9 trillion fiscal aid package, the United
States could return to full employment next year. That package came closer to passage on Friday when lawmakers
approved a budget outline that would enable Democrats to muscle
it through Congress without Republican support. Vaccine deployment, meanwhile, pushes ahead in United
States, with at least 32,780,860 doses administered so far, and
new infections trending lower, on average.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
236.78 points, or 0.76%, to 31,385.02, the S&P 500 .SPX gained
28.75 points, or 0.74%, to 3,915.58 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 131.35 points, or 0.95%, to 13,987.64.
The fourth-quarter reporting season has passed the halfway
mark, with 294 of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported.
Of those, 83% have beaten consensus estimates, according to
Refinitiv.
Analysts see aggregate fourth-quarter S&P earnings posting a
year-on-year gain of 2.4%, a stark reversal from the 10.3%
annual decline seen at the beginning of the year, per Refinitiv.
Walt Disney Co DIS.N , Cisco Systems Inc CSCO.O and
General Motors Co GM.N advanced ahead of their earnings
reports this week.
Bitcoin BTC=BTSP touched a record high after Tesla Inc
TSLA.O announced it had invested around $1.5 billion in the
cryptocurrency and would begin accepting payment in bitcoin for
its cars and other products. "This is really, I view it, as almost a seminal moment in
terms of where we are, in terms of Bitcoin from a transaction
perspective, and the fact that now Tesla and Musk are putting
their name behind," said Daniel Ives, managing director at
Wedbush Securities in Westfield, New Jersey. "I think this is
really an eyebrow-raising move."
Tesla inched up, while shares of cryptocurrency miners Riot
Blockchain RIOT.O and Marathon Patent Group MARA.O soared.