Wall Street closed its latest winning month and quarter with more records on Monday. The drift higher for US stocks followed a wild start to the week for financial markets in Asia, where Japanese stocks tumbled and Chinese indexes soared.
- The S&P 500 climbed 24.31 points, or 0.4%, to to an all-time high of 5,762.48, clinching its fifth straight winning month and fourth straight winning quarter.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 17 points, or less than 0.1%, to 42,330.15, adding to its all-time high set on Friday.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 69.58, or 0.4%, to 18,189.17.
Wall Street has catapulted to records on hopes the slowing US economy can keep growing while the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to offer it more juice. A big test will arrive Friday, when the US. government offers its latest monthly update on the job market, the AP reports. "Payrolls remain the biggest catalyst" for the US stock market until the election, strategists and economists at Bank of America wrote in a BofA Global Research report. At Goldman Sachs, economist David Mericle said he's expecting Friday's report to show hiring in September was stronger than the 146,000 growth in payrolls that economists across Wall Street are broadly forecasting.
Stellantis, the company that owns the Jeep brand and others, tumbled 14.7% in Milan after cutting its forecast for upcoming profit. It cited investments to turn around its US operations and increased Chinese competition. That in turn helped drag down automakers Ford Motor and General Motors on Wall Street. Ford fell 2%, and GM dropped 3.5%. A 2.3% rise for Apple helped offset such losses and was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 to its latest record.
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Japan's Nikkei 225 slumped 4.8% on worries the country's incoming prime minister will support higher interest rates and other policies that investors see as less market-friendly. Shigeru Ishiba is set to take over on Tuesday. In China, meanwhile, indexes soared 8.1% in Shanghai and 2.4% in Hong Kong following the latest announcements of stimulus for the world's second-largest economy. It was the best day for Shanghai stocks in nearly 16 years.
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