Dow Hits Record High Lifting US Stocks As Nasdaq Continues Slide

NEW YORK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th March, 2021) The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit record highs on Monday, helping a wider recovery in US share prices from their recent slide even as high-flying tech stocks continued to plunge.

The Dow, the broadest gauge of the New York Stock Exchange, rose almost 1 percent to close at 31,802, after hitting a record high at 32,148.

The breakout in the Dow came as share prices on Wall Street began a staggered recovery after tumbling several times in recent weeks on a surge in bond yields triggered by worries about post-coronavirus economic recovery. Market optimism was boosted by the Senate passing on Saturday President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.

"The Senate passed Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and optimism that the bond market rout is near its end is helping drive back some risk-on flows to the cyclical rotation trade," Ed Moya, analyst at New York's OANDA brokerage, said.

However, he added that full market recovery will not occur "unless the love for big-tech returns."

Tech stocks, benchmarked against the Nasdaq Composite Index, closed down 2.4 percent at 12,609. Nasdaq has led Wall Street's tumble over the past month on concerns that some of its stocks, which includes tech giants such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, were overvalued. With Monday's drop, Nasdaq is down 2.2 percent this year.

The S&P 500, barometer for the top 500 US stocks, slid 0.5 percent on Monday to close at 3,821. The S&P remains up 1.7 percent on the year.