March 31 (UPI) — The S&P 500 closed March by hitting an intraday record high as tech stocks rose to end the month Wednesday.
The index ended the day up 0.36% to a record high of 3,972.89, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.54%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 85.41 points, or 0.26%.
Facebook stock helped to lead the gains Wednesday, rising 2.27%, while Apple gained 1.88% and Microsoft closed up 1.69%. Tesla stock also rose 5.08%.
Markets reacted to President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which would raise the corporate tax rate to fund the plan within 15 years.
“Investors ‘sell the news’ of President Biden’s infrastructure plan and lean away from infrastructure beneficiaries — energy, materials, industrials — and into the tech-laden sectors that have been ‘beneficiaries’ of the pandemic,” Chris Hussey, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC.
The 10-year Treasury yield traded flat on Wednesday at 1.73% after hitting a 14-month high of 1.77% the day before.
“We’ve been on this ride probably for two quarters now where interest rates are really driving everything,” Tim Courtney, Exencial Wealth Advisors chief investment officer, told Yahoo Finance. “We’re likely to still see interest rates continue to rise, which is healthy and normal and you’d expect to see that in a recovery.”
The Dow climbed 6.6% in March, while the S&P 500 rose 4.3% posting their best months since November, while also turning in their fourth consecutive positive quarters, gaining 7.8% and 5.8% respectively.
The Nasdaq fell behind the pack, gaining just 0.4% for the month and 2.8% for the quarter.
