S&P 500, Nasdaq at Record Highs; House Makes Progress on $3.5T Budget By Investing.com

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs Tuesday, supported by an climb in energy and consumer discretionary amid easing worries about a slowdown in the global recovery.  

The S&P 500 rose 0.15% to a closing record of 4,486.23 The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.09%, or 30 points, the Nasdaq climbed 0.52% to a closing record of 15,019.80.

Energy continued its bright start to the week, riding another surge in oil prices amid renewed hopes on the oil demand outlook as China begins to ease restrictions after curbing the Delta variant of Covid-19 outbreak.

“It seems that the concerns about demand […] have lost much of their scare factor, at least for now,” Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) said, pointing to “clear success” that China has had in combating the spread of infections. “There have been no new cases there since the weekend,” it added.

Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), Nov (NYSE:NOV), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY) led the move higher in the energy sector.

Consumer discretionary stocks also played a role in the broader market advance, underpinned by a surge in Best Buy .

Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) jumped more than 8% after its second-quarter results topped Wall Street estimates, with comparable-store sales rising 19.6%, ahead for forecasts for 18.4%.

Rallying casino stocks added further fuel to the rally in consumer discretionary stocks after Macau, the gambling mecca of Asia, said it would ease traveling restrictions for visitors from the mainland.

Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN), Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ:CZR), and Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) were up sharply, with the latter climbing more than 7% after

Megacap tech stocks traded mostly higher, though Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) struggled to join in.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) were higher.

On the economic front, new home sales rose 1.0% in July to 708,000 units, missing forecasts for 3.1%. On annualized basis, sales fell 27.2% following a 16.5% decline in June. 

In others, House Democrats broke the impasse, approving a $3.5 trillion budget resolution package. The vote paves the way for Democrats to write and approve the package without Republican support, and locks in a September vote the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed in the Senate last month.