Jan. 7 (UPI) — U.S. markets rose to all-time highs on Thursday in the wake of a siege on the Capitol building as Congress certified President-elect Joe Biden‘s election victory the day before.
The Nasdaq Composite gained 326.69 points, or 2.56%, to top 13,000 points for the first time, the S&P 500 gained 55.65 points, or 1.48%, notching its first close above 3,800 points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 211.73 points, or 0.69%, eclipsing 31,000 points.
Apple gained 3.41%, Google‘s parent company, Alphabet, rose 2.99%, and Microsoft increased 2.85% to lead the Nasdaq higher, while the Dow got a boost from Walgreens Boots Alliance rising 5.18% after better-than-expected quarterly results.
The S&P’s tech sector rose 2.7% followed by a 1.8% boost in the consumer discretionary sector, which drove the index higher.
Instead of the chaos at the Capitol, markets largely reacted to a report by the Institute for Supply Management that its index for non-manufacturing activity in the United States rose to 57.2 in December up from 55.9 in November.
The U.S. Labor Department also reported that the number of unemployment claims dropped from 790,000 last week to 787,000 this week.
Thursday’s gains came after the Dow and S&P 500 also hit records on Wednesday as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, delaying the certification of the election results and prompting calls for President Donald Trump to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment.
“There should be no mystery as to why the markets didn’t care about what happened in the Capitol, however disturbing, disgraceful and embarrassing it was,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, said according to CNBC.” It’s because it has no bearing on the direction of the economy, earnings and interest rates. It’s that simple.”
