Symbol	Name	Price		Change	%Change
DJIA	Dow Industrials	18636.05		+59.58	0.32%
S& P 500	S& P 500 Index	2190.15		+6.10	0.28%
NASDAQ	NASDAQ	5262.02		+29.12	0.56%

 

Up! Up! Up! All three major US indexes close at record highs materials lead

U.S. stocks rose Monday, with the three major indexes posting simultaneous record closes for the second time in less than a week, as investors digested rising oil prices.

" The fundamental picture has been mixed, so it' s a little bit hard to look to that as the reason for what seems to be a solid rally," said Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank.

He also noted that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton' s lead in the polls over her GOP counterpart, Donald Trump, may be a contributing factor to the recent rally. " Not to make a statement on which candidate is better, but usually markets prefer for the incumbent party to retain the White House. "

The three indexes also posted new intraday highs, as benchmark S & P 500 and the Nasdaq composite broke above previous intraday highs of 2,188.45 and 5,238.54, respectively, shortly after the open. The Dow Jones industrial average also posted a record high, rising past its previous high of 18,638.34. These previous records were all set last week, despite the indexes posting just slight weekly gains.

" It' s a major vacation time between now and Labor day," said Ernie Cecilia, CIO at Bryn Mawr Trust. " The market right now is floating up on not a lot of news." " There' s a lack of alternatives into other instruments," he said, noting that trading volume has been low recently.

" The market should continue to go higher on the no-alternative factor," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial. " The market is feeding on itself."

" In order to get a big move down, ... you need to see some news the market perceives as bad," said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab. " We do not have that right now. "

Investors, meanwhile, were watching oil prices as US crude settled 2.81 percent higher at $ 45.74 a barrel in choppy trade. On Monday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak bolstered hopes that oil producing nations could take action to stabilize prices, telling a Saudi newspaper that his country was consulting with Saudi Arabia and other producers to achieve market stability.

" Good luck with that, if investors believe this. The move which we are seeing in the market is the real example how speculations can drive the price action. If you look at the demand equation, we had GDP data from the third biggest economy in the world and it is not something which is praising the demand for oil, " said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets.
On the data front, the Empire State Manufacturing survey index fell five points to -4.2.

Investors will also await for the Fed to release the minutes from its July meeting, although Schwab' s Frederick said that he does not expect any big surprises from them.

Overseas, European stocks traded mostly flat. Asian equities traded mixed, as Japan' s Nikkei 225 fell after its GDP data disappointed, while China' s Shanghai composite rose more than 2 percent on stimulus hopes.

Gold futures for December delivery settled $ 4.30 to $ 1,347.50 per ounce.

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