July 26 (UPI) — U.S. markets climbed to new highs Monday after posting modest gains, while bitcoin climbed to a six-week high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 82.76 points, or 0.24%, while the S&P 500 climbed 0.24%, as both posted increases for the fifth consecutive session, and the Nasdaq Composite closed the day up 0.025% as each index touched a record high.
Tesla stock gained 2.21% as it was set to report second-quarter earnings after the bell, while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, increased 0.77% and Apple gained 0.29% while Microsoft dipped 0.21% as they were set to report earnings on Tuesday.
Second-quarter earnings have been strong so far as 88% of S&P 500 companies have posted positive earnings, on pace for the highest percentage since 2008.
“U.S. equities remain resilient as they continue to climb the wall of worry into a record-high territory,” Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler told CNBC. “An impressive start to earnings season has kept the buy the dip sentiment alive and offset concerns over peak growth and rising new cases of coronavirus.”
Bitcoin briefly rose above $40,000 as cryptocurrencies surged after Amazon listed a job opening for a digital currency and blockchain product lead.
Ethereum reached $2,363, while dogecoin climbed to 22 cents per coin for a market cap of $28.8 billion.
The role posted by Amazon would be part of the company’s payment acceptance and experience team and called for someone with a “deep understanding” of the “cryptocurrency ecosystem and related technologies.”
“We’re inspired by the innovation happening in the cryptocurrency space and are exploring what this could look like on Amazon,” a spokesperson told CNN. “We believe the future will be built on new technologies that enable modern, fast and inexpensive payments, and hope to bring that future to Amazon customers as soon as possible.”
