US stocks end higher
Wall Street advanced for the third session in a row today, although the Dow Jones industrial average fell just short of touching its record high close after a jump in oil prices stifled investors’ enthusiasm.
Falling crude oil prices and an increase in new home sales had helped investors shrug off a weak durable goods report earlier in the session.
“I think most of the activity is this push to make a close at all-time highs,” Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management, said of much of today’s early movement.
He argues that the early expectation of surpassing the record drove stocks and that later investors were unsettled in part by the rise in oil prices.
“I think it was a little bit exhausted,” he said of the idea of a record-breaking day. He said, however, that the market’s gains should not be ignored and that optimism remains.
The Dow closed up 19.85, or 0.17%, at 11,689.24, after coming just 2.21 points away from its best close yet of 11,722.98, set in January 2000.
Broader stock indicators also moved higher. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.25, or 0.02%, to 1,336.59, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 2.05, or 0.09%, to 2,263.89.
The Commerce Department said orders to US factories for large manufactured goods fell for a second month in a row in August, the first time in more than two years there have been consecutive declines. Demand for durable goods dropped 0.5% last month to 209.7 billion.
Some good news came from a report that new home sales rose 4.1% in August, their biggest increase in five months. The Commerce Department report raised hopes that a sharp decline in the housing industry could be easing.
