While you were sleeping: Wall Street hits new highs as tech stocks rebound

Wall Street climbed, pushing both the Dow and the S&P 500 to record highs, amid a recovery in tech stocks including Apple.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley expects the pace of inflation to pick up.  His comments helped push the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.188% from 2.157% on Friday. 

"We're pretty close to what we think is full employment," he said in Plattsburgh, New York, according to Bloomberg.

"Inflation is a little bit lower than what we would like, but we think if the labour market continues to tighten, wages will gradually pick up, and with that, we'll see inflation get back to 2 percent.

"I'm actually very confident that even though the expansion is relatively long in the tooth, we still have quite a long way to go."

At the close of trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 144.71 points, or 0.6%, to 21,528.99. The Nasdaq Composite Index rallied 1.4% to 6239.01 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.8% to 2453.46.

Investors piled into tech stocks again a recent retreat. Technology "valuations are not cheap but it doesn't seem to be a deterrent for buyers," Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, told Reuters.

"Investors were temporarily chased from the space but many companies in the sector offer growth which is difficult to find in the market as a whole."

Apple shares rose 2.9%
The Dow rose to a record high as Apple shares gained 2.9% to $US146.34 after falling in six of the seven past sessions. Cisco Systems rose 1.1% while oil stocks fell. Chevron and Exxon Mobil fell 0.9% as the price of oil lagged amid concern the global glut shows little sign of abating.

US crude prices fell 1.2% to $US44.20 a barrel while Brent fell 1.1% to $US46.91. 

"The number of oil rigs continued to rise last week and the market needs to see at what oil price will we not have further rig activation in the US," Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB in Oslo, told Bloomberg.

"There seems to be very low conviction in the market that there really will be any inventory drawdown in the second half of the year."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the day with a 0.9% increase from the previous close. The UK's FTSE 100 Index rose 0.8%, France's CAC40 Index gained 0.9% and Germany's DAX Index climbed 1.1%.

French equities rose after President Emmanuel Macron earned a solid parliamentary victory at the weekend.

"Markets are celebrating the fact the Macron government has been strengthened by this outcome," Vincent Juvyns, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, told Reuters.

"Planned reforms could enhance the growth potential of the country and reduce the structural deficit, something which would lift French GDP going forward."

(BusinessDesk)