By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The S&P 500 continued to flirt with record highs, underpinned by better-than-expected quarterly results from retailers and a boost from Apple as the tech giant’s valuation reached an unprecedented $2 trillion.
The S&P 500 rose 0.15% to 3,395, surging above its previous all-time intraday of 3,393.52 earlier in the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.15%, or 41 points. while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.25%.
The last wave of quarterly results trickling through continued to show that retailers like Target (NYSE:TGT) and Lowe’s Companies Inc (NYSE:LOW) benefited from a pandemic-led boost in sales.
Target jumped 12% reported that second-quarter results beat on both the top and bottom lines with same-store sales growing 24.3% for the quarter, above consensus estimates of 7.6%.
Lowe’s shares gained 0.3% as the home-improvement retailer delivered earnings and revenue that topped expectations.
Industrials and financials, sectors that tend to outperform as the economy strengthens, also led the charge higher in the broader market as investors continue to bet on a faster economic recovery.
In tech, meanwhile, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) became the first company to reach a $2 trillion valuation after gaining 1% to trade above $467.73.
The other Fab 5 stocks, with the exception of Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), were higher. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) traded above the flatline.
Energy, however, struggled to join in the move higher, pressured by decline in oil prices as crude inventories declined by 1.6 million barrels last week, short of forecasts for a draw of 2.67 million barrels.
In other news, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) was dealt a blow after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected the company’s experimental treatment for moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis. Its shares fell 4%.
BioMarin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ:BMRN), meanwhile, slumped 36% after the FDA Food and Drug Administration rejected its hemophilia drug, citing the need for further proof.
Investor attention will shift toward monetary policy as the minutes of the Federal Reserve July meeting are set to be released later.
The minutes will be parsed for clues on the bank's widely expected plans to roll out average inflation targeting, in which inflation would be allowed to overshoot the Fed’s 2% target.