The relentless rally in stocks has pushed the S&P 500 up more than 50% from its March lows amid large stimulus injections and better-than-expected economic and earnings data. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Kostin boosted his year-end price target for the gauge to 3,600 from 3,000, citing the firm’s above-consensus U.S. growth expectations keyed off positive news on the vaccine front. He joined the likes of Yardeni Research founder Ed Yardeni and RBC Capital Markets’ Lori Calvasina who’ve raised their forecasts in recent weeks.
U.S. stocks climbed amid a rally in technology companies, while failing to top their all-time high as big banks sold off. Treasuries rose.
For a third time in the past week, the S&P 500 popped above its February closing record during the session, but ended below it. The American equity benchmark was still buoyed by fresh Chinese stimulus overnight and gains in giants such as Amazon.com Inc. and Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., which drove the NYSE FANG+ Index up about 3%. The Nasdaq 100 outperformed amid a jump in Tesla Inc. and Nvidia Corp. as well as strong results from online retailer JD.com Inc. Big banks sank after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. pared stakes in many of the industry’s top names. Boeing Co. weighed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
