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Stocks rose on Monday, building on last week’s strong performance, as investors looked past record numbers in coronavirus cases from the weekend.
The Dow Jones Industrials galloped 391.63 points, or 1.5%, to 26,466.93.
The S&P 500 grew 40.02 points, or 1.3%, to 3,224.95
The tech-heavy NASDAQ jumped 180.27 points, or 1.7%, to 10,797.71.
Key technology shares climbed, continuing their mystifying run as investors bet on their resilience during the coronavirus. Apple, Amazon and Netflix were higher. Tesla jumped 12.6%. Analysts at Wedbush and Morgan Stanley raised their price targets on Apple, sending the stock up 1.9%.
Chip stocks increased after Analog Devices offered to buy Maxim Integrated in a $21 billion all-stock deal. Maxim jumped 11%.
Positive news on the vaccine front lifted sentiment as well. Pfizer and German biotech BioNTech SE were granted fast track designation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for two of the companies’ four vaccine candidates against the coronavirus. Pfizer shares added 2.6%. BioNTech jumped 10%.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they expect to start the next phase of the vaccine trial later this month with 30,000 subjects. The companies expect to have 100 million doses of a vaccine by the end of 2020 and more than 1.2 billion doses by the end of 2021.
Chip stocks increased after Analog Devices offered to buy Maxim Integrated in a $21-billion all-stock deal. Maxim jumped 11%.
Earnings season kicked off on Monday with PepsiCo reporting better-than-expected results. The stock climbed more than 0.5%. JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are scheduled to report on Tuesday.
Corporate profits are expected to fall by 44% in the second quarter, which would be the biggest drop in quarterly earnings since the fourth quarter of 2008. However, the market could shrug off the sharp profit decline as long as companies signal a recovery on the horizon.
JPMorgan shares gained about 2.7%.
Florida reported 15,299 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the highest single day total for any U.S. state since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, the U.S. has reported more than 60,000 new cases daily for three days in a row now, bringing the national total to more than three million cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Prices for the 10-Year Treasury faded, raising yields to 0.65% from Friday’s 0.64%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dipped one cent to $40.54 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices climbed $7.60 to $1,809.50 U.S. an ounce.
