S&P 500, Nasdaq Hit Records as Stocks Recoup Losses

thebalancemoney.com:

U.S. stocks more than recovered last week’s losses, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index reaching a record high and the Nasdaq Composite Index closing above 15,000 for the first time Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed just shy of its all-time high.

Since their lows on March 23, 2020, at the pandemic’s onset, stocks had rallied strongly in fits and starts, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq more than doubling in value, despite the resurgence of various waves of coronavirus over the last 18 months. The Dow hit its record high of 35,631.19 on Aug. 16.

The bounceback comes on the heels of a spate of negative economic news that had pressured prices during the last two weeks. The bad news included data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a surge in COVID-19’s delta variant in August, to levels not seen since late January; a “stunning loss” of consumer confidence in the much-heralded University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey in the first part of August, as people worried about the variant’s economic impact; a larger-than-expected 1.1% decline in July retail sales; and a reduction by Goldman Sachs of its third-quarter growth outlook from 9% to 5.5%, due to a larger-than-expected economic impact from the variant.

Last week, on an intraday basis, the S&P 500 touched its lowest level since July 22, the Dow was at its weakest since July 22, and the Nasdaq fell to its lowest point since July 20.

What’s changed since then is that, on Monday, the Food and Drug Administration officially approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, clearing the way for companies and government agencies that may have been hesitant to mandate a non-FDA approved vaccine to require one now. President Joe Biden called