Aug. 12 (UPI) — The S&P 500 narrowly missed a record close on Wednesday as markets rallied after a poor performance on Tuesday.
At the end of trading Wednesday, the S&P 500 gained 1.4% to reach 3,380.35 points, falling just short of its record closing high of 3,386.15 and 0.4% below its intraday all-time high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 296.23 points, or 1.07%, while the Nasdaq Composite increased 2.13%.
Tech stocks, which had stumbled to begin the week helped to lead the rally Wednesday, as Apple gained 3.32%, Microsoft rose 2.86% Amazon grew 2.65%, Facebook increased 1.47%, Netflix rose 1.83% and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, ended the day up 1.8%.
Despite the United States reporting fewer than 50,000 new COVID-19 cases, stocks related to travel, retail and other business that would benefit from lifting restrictions related to the pandemic performed poorly on Wednesday, with Carnival falling 4%.
Bank stocks also faltered on Wednesday as JPMorgan Chase stock fell 0.85%, Citigroup dropped 0.76% and Bank of America slid 0.71%.
Markets also responded positively to President Donald Trump announcing Tuesday that the United States reached a deal with biotech company Moderna to secure 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
