S&P 500 hits 4,000 mark on tech strength, reopening optimism

REUTERS: The S&P 500 on Thursday crossed the 4,000 mark for the first time, as gains in technology shares as well as optimism about a pickup in economic activity helped Wall Street kick off the second quarter on a high note.

Swift vaccinations and a massive fiscal stimulus program are powering a recovery in the labor market, helping investors shrug off latest data that showed a rise in the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits last week.

The closely-watched monthly jobs report on Friday could show the U.S. economy added 647,000 jobs in March, on top of a 379,000 increase in February.

There is also optimism about President Joe Biden's US$2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan that would bring more investment into building roads and bridges and tackling climate change.

The 4,000 level "could be a possible inflection point where it renews confidence that this bull cycle is not over and that equities can remain resilient in the face of heightened interest rates and perhaps a not as extremely accommodative Fed policy," said Matt Hanna, portfolio manager at Summit Global Investments.

It took the benchmark index about a year-and-a-half to close the 1,000-point gap to 4,000, compared with about five years from 2,000 to 3,000 points.

The blue-chip Dow is less than 1per cent below its own record high, while the Nasdaq is about 5per cent off its all-time high as a rapid rise in U.S. bond yields accelerated a rotation from richly-valued tech stocks to underpriced economy-linked stocks.

Seven of the 11 S&P sectors rose, with technology and communication services and energy gaining more than 1per cent.

"April is usually a pretty good month for the market historically and I would expect that momentum to continue especially as we see the economy strengthen," said Larry Adam, chief investment officer at Raymond James.

Micron Technology Inc jumped 4.8per cent after the chipmaker forecast fiscal third-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates due to higher demand for memory chips, thanks to 5G smartphones and artificial intelligence software.

U.S.-listed shares of rival Taiwan Semiconductor rose 3.8per cent on its plan to invest US$100 billion over the next three years to meet the rising chip demand.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1.7per cent as "high flying" stocks including Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook Inc added between 1.1per cent and 2.3per cent after underperforming last month. At 10:34 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 56.45 points, or 0.17per cent, at 33,038.00, the S&P 500 was up 33.19 points, or 0.84per cent, at 4,006.08.

The CBOE volatility index slipped below 18 points for the first time in 14 months, a level last seen before the coronavirus-driven global financial market meltdown in March 2020.

Johnson & Johnson fell 1per cent after the drugmaker said it had found a problem with a batch of the drug substance for its COVID-19 vaccine being produced by Emergent Biosolutions.

Emergent's shares tumbled 14.3per cent.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.80-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.80-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 15 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 53 new highs and six new lows.

(Reporting by Devik Jain and Medha singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)