Wall Street inches up to new highs; transports jump

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose slightly in late afternoon on Monday, lifting the Dow and S&P 500 to intraday highs after the indexes advanced for a third straight week, helped by transportation shares.

The Dow Jones transportation average was up 1.1 percent, also hitting another intraday record high, led by gains in railroad and airline shares.

Union Pacific was up 1.8 percent and among the top gainers on the S&P 500, while shares of JetBlue jumped 3.4 percent.

Results late Friday from Berkshire Hathaway showed profit from the BNSF railroad rose about 5 percent. Berkshire Class B shares were up 0.8 percent, also among the top gainers in the S&P 500.

Oil prices extended recent losses, with U.S. crude oil prices falling below $78 a barrel, helping airline shares as well as some consumer names.

"We're making new highs, volatility is low and that suggests investors are complacent enough to buy stocks at those highs. Interest rates are still low, oil prices are low and everything looks conducive to more strength between now and the end of the year," said John Kosar, director of research with Asbury Research in Chicago.

At 2:32 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average rose 28.74 points, or 0.16 percent, to 17,602.67, the S&P 500 gained 4.83 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,036.75 and the Nasdaq Composite added 14.64 points, or 0.32 percent, to 4,647.17.

The bulk of U.S. third-quarter earnings has come in, though a handful of high-profile retailers have yet to report. Wal-Mart, due to report results Thursday, climbed 1.5 percent.

The Dow has gained 7.3 percent while the S&P 500 has risen 7.7 percent over the past three weeks, the best three-week performance for both indexes since October 2011.

Shares of cable providers fell after U.S. President Barack Obama said the Federal Communications Commission should reclassify broadband to regulate it more like a public utility. Comcast lost 4.2 percent.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,555 to 1,465, for a 1.06-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,474 issues rose and 1,191 fell for a 1.24-to-1 ratio.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)