Wall Street Up Again But Tesla A Drag

Wall Street stocks ended slightly higher on Monday, rising early after passage of a US infrastructure spending bill but paring gains late as sliding Tesla shares weighed the indexes down.

Still, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq extended their run of all-time closing highs to eight straight sessions. The blue-chip Dow notched its second consecutive record closing high.

"It has become a self-fulfilling prophesy," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.

"Why are the indexes going up? Because people are buying," Nolte added. "Why are they buying? Because the indexes going up."

Tesla was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500. Its shares fell 4.9 percent following CEO Elon Musk's Twitter poll on whether he should sell about 10 percent of his holdings of stock in the electric carmaker he founded. The poll garnered more than 3.5 million votes, with 57.9 percent voting "Yes".

Economically sensitive cyclicals and chips led the charge higher, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index also hitting a record high close.

Industrials and materials got a boost after the US Congress passed President Joe Biden's US$1 trillion infrastructure spending bill on Saturday.

"Over the weekend we got another trillion dollars thrown at the economy which is already running hot," Nolte said. "So investors are looking at that as a very good thing for equity markets."

Lawmakers now turn to Biden's social spending bill, with the House of Representatives expected to vote on the measure next week, according to White House economic adviser Brian Deese.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.29 percent, to 36,432, the S&P 500 gained 0.09 percent, to 4,702 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.07 percent, to 15,982. (Reuters)

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