Nasdaq hits all-time high as stocks rise on strong US economy

Stocks on Wall Street continued to rise on the latest sign of a strong domestic economy that overshadowed international trade tensions.

A big bounce on Friday followed an upbeat US employment report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 219.37 points – not enough to recoup all of its losses from earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, the political situation eased in Italy and markets rose in Europe and elsewhere.

At the close, the Dow was up 178.68 points, or 0.7%, to 24,813.89. The S&P 500 gained 0.45% 2746.90. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.7% to 7606.46, breaking through its March 12 all-time closing high.

“There’s an underlying strength that we’re still seeing come through in the US economy in particular,” Bessemer Trust. chief investment strategist Holly MacDonald says.

“That’s an important offset to a lot of the negative headline risks.”

These include the Trump administration’s refusal to back down from restrictive tariffs in the face of pushback from allies and China.

G7 rebukes US
Finance ministers from the G7 leading nations issued a public rebuke of new US steel and aluminium tariffs on Saturday, expressing “unanimous concern and disappointment.”

China separately said it wouldn’t abide by any agreement to buy more US products without assurances that the US wouldn’t go ahead with plans to hit it with tariffs on Chinese imports.

Technology heavyweights helped buoy markets, extending a spell of confidence in one of this year’s most volatile groups.

Shares of Amazon.com, Apple, Microsoft and Adobe Systems all closed at new highs.

Corporate news drove some tech moves. Microsoft rose roughly 1% after it said it will acquire software development platform GitHub.

Apple shares rise
Apple shares jumped, too, as investors tracked its annual conference for developers.

Strong earnings and economic data are “overwhelming the unknown risks of the trade negotiations,” US Bank Private Wealth Management senior portfolio manager Michael Baele says.

“The market continues to bask in the afterglow of Friday’s superb employment report.”

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note rose to 2.924% from 2.895% on Friday.

Bonds sold off on Friday after the US employment report as investors bet the Federal Reserve would pick up the pace on interest-rate increases.

European markets rise
The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.3% as political worries about Italy and Spain continued to stabilise.

Spain’s IBEX 35 index rose 1.3%, recovering most of last week’s decline as conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was ousted and replaced by Socialist Party leader Pedro Sánchez.

The new government’s first move was to lift direct rule of Catalonia as a regional government was sworn in. It included hard-line supporters of Catalan independence.

France’s 40 rose 0.1%, Germany’s DAX was up 0.4% and the UK’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.5%.

Italy’s FTSE MIB retreated 0.45% as investors weight the chances of the new populist coalition government carrying out its promises of a crackdown on immigration, universal basic income and a flat tax.