Techs buoy S&P, Nasdaq; Goldman pushes Dow to record high

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

REUTERS - Financial and technology stocks powered the Dow to an all-time high on Monday, and set the S&P and the Nasdaq for their best day in two weeks.

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 $228.33, its highest in nine years, after HSBC initiated coverage with a "buy" rating and a $250 price target.

At 12:35 p.m. ET (1735 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 59.69 points, or 0.31 percent, at 19,230.11, easing after hitting a record high of 19,274.85.

The S&P 500 was up 12.01 points, or 0.55 percent, at 2,203.96 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 45.41 points, or 0.86 percent, at 5,301.07.

Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were higher, with financials' 1.31 percent giving the broader index its biggest boost, followed by a 0.87 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.

The defensive utilities sector was the other laggard.

"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 U.S. economy had reduced, while his Chicago counterpart Charles Evans said the economy was entering a period of rising interest rates.

Traders have priced in a 92 percent chance of the Fed raising interest rates when it meets on Dec. 13-14.

Shares of Chesapeake Energy were up 5 percent at $7.56 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 2,112 to 777. On the Nasdaq, 2,098 issues rose and 664 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 49 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 176 new highs and 14 new lows.

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