Goldman sends Dow to record high, techs lift S&P, Nasdaq

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

REUTERS - Wall Street rose on Monday, with financials and technology stocks powering Dow to a new intraday high and boosting the S&P and the Nasdaq.

The Dow has been enjoying a record-setting rally, largely driven by bank and industrial stocks, which are expected to benefit the most from higher spending on infrastructure and simpler regulations under a Donald Trump administration.

The index has risen 5 percent since the Nov. 8 vote, while the S&P financial index has surged 14.3 percent.

Goldman Sachs rose 2.2 percent to $228.32, its highest in nine years, after HSBC initiated coverage with a "buy" rating and a $250 price target.

Eight of the 11 S&P sectors were higher, with financials' 1.3 percent rise leading the gainers, followed by a 1.05 percent gain in technology.

Health insurers Aetna and Humana were down more than 3 percent, dragging down the healthcare index after Justice Department attorneys argued to a judge that Aetna's acquisition of Humana violated antitrust law for its Medicare and Obamacare exchange businesses.

Defensive sectors, utilities and real estate, were the other laggards.

"Over the last few months, we had this increasingly pessimistic outlook on the stock market and the economy," said Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.

"Trump has been sort of a wake-up call for some complacent investors to take a look and see that inflation was moving higher and the economy is improving."

New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley told CNBC that downside risks to the economy had reduced, while his Chicago counterpart Charles Evans said the U.S. economy was entering a period of rising interest rates.

At 10:59 a.m. ET (1559 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 91.58 points, or 0.48 percent, at 19,262. The index had hit a high of 19,274.85.

The S&P 500 was up 15.66 points, or 0.71 percent, at 2,207.61 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 60.28 points, or 1.15 percent, at 5,315.93.

Shares of Chesapeake Energy were the top percentage gainers on the S&P, rising 4.9 percent to $7.57 after the U.S. natural gas producer said it would sell a part of its acreage in the Haynesville Shale area for $450 million to a private company.

FairPoint shares jumped 12 percent after Consolidated Communications said it would buy the broadband service provider in an all-stock deal valued at $1.5 billion, including debt. Shares of Consolidated were off 4.4 percent.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,024 to 799. On the Nasdaq, 2,159 issues rose and 523 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 41 new 52-week highs and one new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 154 new highs and eight new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)