S&P 500 closes at record high as Apple, healthcare stocks help ignore Delta concerns

NEW YORK, Aug. 3 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 Index closed at a record high on Tuesday thanks to gains in Apple stocks and health care, despite concerns over an increase in the Delta variant of the coronavirus shining a season of optimistic business profits.

Ten of the 11 S&P indices traded higher, with energy stocks (.SPNY) rebounding after being hit by lower oil prices.

“Even though the pandemic is still with us in some places where there are pockets of this and that, blanket shutdowns of economies will not happen. And I think that shows that the patterns of consumption are very strong, which is the underlying factor that really keeps the markets up, ”said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Virginia.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) rose 1.26% after slipping last week. Other big tech stocks, including Netflix Inc (NFLX.O), Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O), continued to decline slightly, capping gains on the high tech Nasdaq.

A group of US companies, including industrial materials maker Dupont (DD.N) and Discovery Inc (DISCA.O), posted better-than-expected quarterly results, but their shares fell as investors took profits in a context of high stock market valuation. Read more

An extensive regulatory review in China has created nervousness in the global tech sector.

Shares of listed game companies in the US and Europe fell after a strong sell-off by Chinese social media and video game group Tencent (0700.HK), driven by fears the sector could be next in the line. line of sight of regulators. Read more

Grand Theft Auto creator Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (TTWO.O) plunged 7.71% after posting disappointing sales forecasts. Read more

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 278.24 points, or 0.8%, to 35,116.4, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 35.99 points, or 0.82%, to 4,423.15 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 80.23 points, or 0.55%, to 14,761.30.

The previous closing high for the S&P 500 (.SPX) was 4,422.30.

Data on Tuesday showed orders for US factories rose 1.5% in June after rising 2.3% the month before. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 1% increase in June.

Later in the week, attention will shift to data on the US service sector and the monthly employment report for July.

In mergers and acquisitions, Translate Bio (TBIO.O) jumped 29.23% after the French Sanofi (SASY.PA) agreed to buy the US biotech company for $ 3.2 billion of dollars. Read more

Under Armor Inc and Ralph Lauren Corp (RL.N) jumped 6.19% and 6.13% respectively after raising their annual revenue guidance. Read more

Overall, profits for S&P 500 companies are said to have increased by around 90% in the second quarter from a forecast of 65.4% in early July, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Read more

“Earnings reports continue to be very strong or stronger than people expect, leading me to believe people are underestimating the strength of the recovery,” Cox said.

Volume on the U.S. exchanges was 9.28 billion shares, compared to an average of 9.73 billion for the full session over the past 20 trading days.

The advancing issues outnumbered the declining ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 1.60 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a ratio of 1.05 to 1 favored the declines.

The S&P 500 posted 70 new 52 week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 91 new highs and 117 new lows.

Echo Wang report in New York; additional reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani, Sruthi Shankar and Shashank Nayar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Dan Grebler

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.