US Markets

S&P, Dow again rise to record closes amid earnings

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U.S. stocks stepped modestly higher on Monday, with health-care companies leading the charge that again lifted benchmarks to records, as investors tracked corporate results as the earnings season starts to wind down.

"There does seem to be a degree of momentum bouncing off the last three weeks. Health care in general is surging today, probably due to the pending review of the Affordable Care Act by the Supreme Court," said Jim Russell, portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor, referring to the high court's surprising announcement on Friday that it would hear a challenge to the subsidies that help people pay their insurance premiums.

"It's possible that the current rules in place around pricing and product pricing may be modified to some extent," Russell said.

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"In terms of the market push itself, earnings for the third quarter look very good, and the strong dollar hasn't been too much of a headwind to date," said Russell.

McDonald's gained after the fast-food chain and Dow component reported same-store sales slid in October. Toll Brothers climbed after the luxury homebuilder reported a 29 percent increase in quarterly revenue. Alibaba Group rose ahead of Tuesday's "Singles' Day" in China, which has become the biggest day of online sales globally. Dendreon plunged after the maker of a prostate-cancer treatment bankruptcy. Abercrombie & Fitch fell after Oppenheimer downgraded the retailer's shares to market perform from outperform.

"You've got more than three-quarters of all companies exceeding earnings estimates, which is the best in seven quarters," said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.

Major U.S. Indexes


Toppling intraday and closing records set only a session ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 39.81 points, or 0.23 percent, at 17,613.74 points, with Nike leading blue-chip gains.

Also hitting an all-time high, the rose 0.31 percent, or 6.34 points, to 2,038.26, with health care advancing the most and energy the leading laggard among its 10 major industry groups.

The Nasdaq closed up 19.08 points, or 0.41 percent, at 4,651.62.

The CBOE Volatility Index, a measure of investor uncertainty, fell 3.1 percent to 12.71.

"There is no catalyst that you can put your arms around at this time that could trigger a meaningful pullback. Thus, we turn to the technicals," Elliot Spar, market strategist at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., emailed in afternoon commentary.

"Perhaps a clear break of the 10-day moving averages on at least two out of three among the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 will be the trigger for pullback," Spar added.

Advancers were a step ahead of decliners on the New York Stock Exchange, where about 717 million shares traded around the close. Composite volume neared 3.3 billion.

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Oct. 15, 2014.
Getty Images

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note used to determine mortgage rates and other consumer loans rose 6 basis points to 2.3562 percent.

The U.S. dollar turned higher against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners, and dollar-denominated commodities including oil and gold slipped.

"Commodity prices have been driven almost entirely by the dollar, and I think it's going to remain strong. But let the dollar appreciate against the euro, and help Europe," said Frederick at Charles Schwab.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude-oil futures for December delivery dipped $1.25 to $77.40 a barrel, and the December gold contract dropped $10.00 to $1,159.80 an ounce.

"Collectively Europe is the largest economic entity on the globe, so Europe matters. Lower oil prices globally are a positive for Europe," said Russell at Bahl & Gaynor.

On Friday, U.S. stocks wavered, with the S&P 500 and Dow industrials setting their loftiest finishes, after data had the U.S. economy producing less-than-expected jobs in October and the unemployment rate declining to a six-year low.

Read More Records broken in third week of gains for Dow, S&P

"The mid-terms are behind us, Fed tightening is behind us, and the economic data continues to look good; I'm not an uber-optimist, but I'm having a difficult time finding anything to worry about through year end," said Frederick.

—CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

Coming Up This Week:

Monday

5:10 p.m.: Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren

Tuesday

U.S. Veteran's Day

Bond market closed

Stock market, futures open

Earnings: Vodafone, DR Horton, Fossil

7:30 a.m.: NFIB small business survey

Wednesday

Earnings: Burberry, Macy's, Beazer Homes, SeaWorld, Cisco, JC Penney, NetApp, Pinnacle Foods, Telefonica, Iamgold, Flowers Foods

3:00 a.m.: Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser

7:00 a.m.: Mortgage applications

10:00 a.m.: Wholesale trade

12:00 p.m.: Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota

1:00 p.m.: $24 billion 10-year note auction

Thursday

Earnings: Wal-Mart, Nordstrom, Tyco, Viacom, AFBiller, Kohl's, Manulife Financial, Applied Materials

8:30 a.m.: Jobless claims

10:00 a.m.: JOLTs

11:00 a.m.: Oil inventories

12:30 p.m.: Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser

12:45 p.m.: Fed Chair Janet Yellen welcoming remarks at Fed/ECB conference

1:00 p.m.: $16 billion 30-year bond auction

2:00 p.m.: Treasury budget

3:30 p.m.: Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota

4:30 p.m.: Fed balance sheet

Friday

8:30 a.m.: Retail sales

8:30 a.m.: Import and export prices

9:10 a.m.: St. Louis Fed President James Bullard

9:55 a.m.: Consumer sentiment

10:00 a.m.: Business inventories

10:30 a.m.: Natural-gas inventories

4:00 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer on panel

4:00 p.m.: Fed Gov. Jerome Powell on panel

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