NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – With price gains and further index highs, the US stock markets seamlessly continued the strong previous week on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial climbed a record high of 31,365 points and was most recently 0.59 percent higher at 31,333.05 points.
The other leading indices also posted further record highs. So the S&P 500 went up to almost 3910 points. Most recently, the market-wide index gained 0.52 percent to 3907.03 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 made it up to 13,698 points and recently recorded a gain of 0.48 percent at 13,669.81 points.
The promotion of the new US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for the billion dollar aid package from President Joe Biden and the prospect of a return to full employment in the coming year created a good mood. Market observers also referred to the ongoing vaccination campaign and signals of declining corona infection numbers in the USA.
The rising oil prices also contributed to the positive overall picture. If the pandemic is increasingly pushed back by vaccinations, restrictions on public life could be lifted. In addition to the planned US economic stimulus package, this would benefit the economy and boost oil demand. Oil stocks such as Chevron and ExxonMobil rose 2.2 and 3.8 percent, respectively. Occidental Petroleum’s paper rose as much as 10.5 percent.
Apple shares, on the other hand, fell 0.2 percent, making them one of the weakest Dow stocks. South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia put a damper on weeks of speculation about a collaboration to build an Apple car. Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia announced that they are currently not in talks with the iPhone company about the development of autonomous vehicles.
Tesla’s shares gained 2.1 percent. The electric car manufacturer is opening up to digital currencies and will soon accept payments in Bitcoin for purchases of cars and other products. In addition, Tesla itself bought bitcoins worth a total of 1.5 billion dollars. The Bitcoin price drove the news on Monday to a record high of more than 43,000 dollars.
The stocks of Estee Lauder benefited from positive analyst comments and expanded their eight percent price gain from Friday with a plus of 2.8 percent. JPMorgan upgraded the cosmetics company’s paper by two steps from “Underweight” to “Overweight”. Analyst Andrea Teixeira./edh/he wrote that the figures for the second fiscal quarter clearly signaled that Estee Lauder was successfully diverting sales from travel and retail outlets into online channels much faster than expected
– –