Apple and Airlines Stocks Pushes S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite to New Highs

| Updated
by Godfrey Benjamin · 3 min read
Apple and Airlines Stocks Pushes S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite to New Highs
Photo: Shutterstock

Apple shares took the lead to open the week ahead of other top tech stocks. Airlines and cruise stocks rose as well.

Behind the backdrop of new rallies in the shares of Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) and airlines such as United Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: UAL), the wall street indexes have been pushed to new highs on Monday. Climbing 1%, the S&P 500 (INDEXSP: .INX) made history as the index closed above 3,400 for the first time ever. The benchmark all-time high is now 3,431.28.

While the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX: .DJI) added 378.13 points, equivalent to a 1.4% uptick to close at 28,308.46, The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6% to 11,379.72 and also reached a record high. These wall street indices gained their strength as driven by wall street stock veterans including Apple (AAPL) and airlines stocks.

Apple and Airlines Stocks Providing the Indices Lead

Apple shares took the lead to open the week ahead of other top tech stocks. Rising by 1.20% adding $5.95 to close at $503.43. The shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) climbed 1.6% to close at $271.39, e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) advanced 0.7% to close $3,307.46 coasting its 52-week high of $3,380.32 while Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) surged 0.6% to close $1,585.15.

Shares of airlines and cruise operators also saw gains.

“There’s been a broadening in this rally and that’s what’s reflected in the transports,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. “(Higher) volume is accompanying this expanding breadth, and those are all bullish things.”

As curated by CNBC, the cruise companies saw these gains amid positive coronavirus treatment developments. United Airlines (UAL) rose by more than 9% along with American Airlines Group Inc (NASDAQ: AAL). Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE: DAL) gained 9.3%. Cruising outfits also saw tremendous rallies as Carnival Corp (NYSE: CCL) advanced 10.2%. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NYSE: NCLH) and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE: RCL) closed higher by 7.6% and 4.7%, respectively.

Bull Run, Not All-encompassing

Despite the green ticks of these selected stocks, other wall street shares experienced bearish trends as the week opens. Bruce Bittles, the chief investment strategist at Baird, believes investors need to tread carefully as only a small group of stocks are responsible for the market’s bullish run. Writing in a note, Bittles said:

“The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ hit new record highs last week but more stocks were down than up. Typically, the opposite should be true, In a healthy rising market, the majority of stocks, groups, and sectors should be rising along with the averages. On Friday, deteriorating market breadth was exhibited by roughly 200 stocks in the S&P 500 that were up and almost 300 were down.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is set to grant AZD1222, the COVID-19 vaccine candidate being developed by duo AstraZeneca Plc (LON: AZN) and Oxford University, an Emergency-Use Authorization status through the Food and Drug Administration in a bid to make the vaccine available before the November elections.

In addition, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization of convalescent plasma for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, a treatment that uses blood plasma donated by people who’ve recovered from the virus. Affirmed to cut the COVID-19 mortality rate by about 35%, these events can help contribute to increased hope for an overall faster economic recovery.

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