Stocks closed higher on Wall Street Monday at the start of a heavy week of potentially market-moving news.
- The S&P 500 rose 36.96 points, or 0.8%, to 4,927.93, an all-time high .
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 224.02 points, or 0.6%, to 38,333.45, also an all-time high.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 172.68 points, or 1.1%, to 15,628.04.
This week, several Big Tech companies will report their latest results, including Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Federal Reserve will also announce its latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday, and a highly anticipated jobs report will come out on Friday.
A wave of encouraging data has Wall Street believing its dream scenario can come true: The Fed will successfully conquer high inflation and soon deliver the cuts to rates that investors crave, while the economy skirts through without falling into a recession that seemed inevitable last year, the AP reports. "This week could be key," says Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. "If the market is going to sustain its latest breakout, it may need to avoid earnings disappointments from this week's Big Tech lineup, get encouraging news from the Fed on interest rates, and see jobs numbers that are solid, but not too hot."
Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms, is expected to be the single biggest contributor to growth for the overall S&P 500, according to FactSet. Nvidia is close behind, followed by Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon. Companies so far this reporting season have not been getting as big a boost to their stock price as usual after topping analysts' forecasts. Franklin Resources, an investment manager, fell 0.3% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
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SoFi Technologies did better, and its stock jumped 20.2% after the financial services company reported stronger results for the last three months of 2023 than analysts expected. Its forecast for profit this upcoming year also topped analysts' estimates. Archer Daniels Midland jumped 5.6% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 to recover some of its sharp loss from last week, after it put its chief financial officer on leave and said it's investigating some of its accounting practices. On the losing side of Wall Street, iRobot fell 8.8% after agreeing to call off its purchase by Amazon following scrutiny from antitrust regulators.
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