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WALL STREET CLOSES OUT ITS 5TH STRAIGHT QUARTERLY GAIN
- By The Financial District
- Jul 1, 2021
- 2 min read
Wall Street closed out its fifth straight quarterly gain Wednesday, continuing its comeback from a steep drop in early 2020 at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Damian J. Troise, Alex Veiga, and Stan Choe reported for the Associated Press (AP).
The S&P 500 edged up 0.1%, bringing its advance over the past three months to 8.2% and 14.4% for the first half of the year. The benchmark index finished June with a 2.2% gain and its third straight all-time high as it extended its winning streak to a fifth day.
Stocks have been pushing higher on optimism that the economy is strengthening and that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates low for a while longer.
“The Fed has sort of kept the proverbial spigot open, if you will, with liquidity, so there’s still a pretty sizable amount of capital out there looking for a place to go,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading & derivatives at Charles Schwab.
Meanwhile, concerns about inflation earlier this year have dissipated somewhat, as investors have become increasingly convinced that the rise in prices for everything from food to oil to lumber is temporary and a result of the US economy recovering from the pandemic.
Trading Wednesday was relatively subdued as investors wait for the government’s monthly jobs report due out Friday. “We’re definitely in the doldrums of summer; volatility and volume will probably be pretty light,” said Jason Pride, chief investment officer of private wealth at Glenmede.
The S&P 500 index rose 5.70 points to 4,297.50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 210.22 points, or 0.6%, to 34,502.51. The Nasdaq composite fell 24.38 points, or 0.2%, to 14,503.95. The tech-heavy index hit record highs on Monday and Tuesday. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks rose 1.71 points, or 0.1%, to 2,310.55. Many professional investors along Wall Street say stocks can keep rising from here, just not as much as they did during the first half of the year.
