Coverage: Stocks close at record highs

The U.S. stock market closed Monday at record highs, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all hit all-time highs on the same day for the first time since 1999.

Akane Otani and Riva Gold of The Wall Street Journal had the news:

Investors have piled into banks, health-care stocks and industrials on bets that President-elect Donald Trump would loosen regulationand boost infrastructure spending. At the same time, they have pulled back from Treasurys and their stock-market proxies, which are less attractive to investors when interest rates rise.

On Monday, stocks rose broadly, led by gains in energy shares as U.S. oil prices reached their highest levels in three weeks.

“The market’s been ripping since the election,” said Bill Costello,portfolio manager at Westwood Holdings Group. Hopes that the Trump administration would usher in a pro-business, pro-growth environment are driving stocks higher yet, Mr. Costello added.

The Dow industrials rose 88.76 points, or 0.5%, to 18956.69, above its Nov. 15 closing record of 18923.06. The S&P 500 rose 16.28 points, or 0.7%, to 2198.18, closing above its Aug. 15 record of 2190.15. The Nasdaq Composite added 47.35 points, or 0.9%, to 5368.86, passing its record of 5339.52 reached on Sept. 22.

Marley Jay of the Associated Press attributed the gains to a rise in oil prices:

Investors also applauded several corporate deals, and technology companies, which have been lagging the market in recent weeks, posted solid gains. Makers of basic materials and utility companies also climbed.

The price of oil jumped 4 percent ahead of a meeting of OPEC countries, who collectively produce more than a third of the world’s oil. OPEC has agreed on the outlines of a deal to reduce production in an attempt to support flagging oil prices, which are still far lower than they were two years ago. That would in turn lift energy company profits.

Stocks reached all-time highs over the summer and have built on those gains since the election. On Monday the Dow Jones industrial average, Standard & Poor’s 500, and Nasdaq composite all set records. So did the Russell 2000, an index of smaller companies, and the S&P’s small- and mid-size company indexes.

The last time all those indexes set records on the same day was Dec. 31, 1999, according to Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist for LPL Financial.

Caroline Valetkevitch of Reuters notes that investors are taking money out of bonds and putting it in stocks:

“The post-election rally is continuing,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama. Optimism that Trump will ease regulations and reduce taxes “keeps pulling money into the market,” he said.

“A lot of money came out of bond funds last week into stocks, and I think that can continue given the potential spread between what stocks can do versus bonds.”

Data from TrimTabs Investment Research showed investors moved $45.7 billion into U.S.-listed equity exchange-traded funds in the eight trading days ended Thursday, the biggest eight-session inflow on record.