April 1 (UPI) — The S&P 500 crossed the 4,000-point threshold for the first time Thursday as the major U.S. indexes reported gains to start the month of April.
The broad equity benchmark climbed 1.18% to 4,019.87, while the Nasdaq Composite increased 1.76%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also gained 171.66 points or 0.52%.
The S&P’s rise from 3,000 to 4,000 took 434 trading days, the shortest gap in 1,000 point milestones in the history of the index, which took 1,227 days to rise from 2,000 to 3,000.
Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest, told The Wall Street Journal, that there is “always some excitement” at the start of a new quarter but warned that markets can get stuck on those numbers.
“Lots of times the market has to test that level a few times before it can go higher,” said Bell.
Tech stocks rallied for a second consecutive day as Netflix stock increased 3.4%, Google’s parent company Alphabet gained 3.26%, Amazon climbed 2.16% and Microsoft closed the day up 2.79%.
Markets responded to President Joe Biden unveiling his $2 trillion infrastructure plan on Wednesday, which would include a provision to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% to fund it.
“The reopening of the U.S. economy continues to support equity markets as the light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel draws near,” Craig Johnson, technical market strategist at Piper Sandler told CNBC. “Fiscal and monetary policy support remain unprecedented and well-telegraphed at this juncture.”
The 10-year treasury yield dropped seven basis points to 1.68% Thursday after hitting a 14-month high of 1.77%.
Investors also reacted to the Labor Department reporting higher than expected unemployment claims as about 719,000 workers filed new claims last week, an increase of 61,000 from the previous week.
