Wall Street Starts 2022 With Record Highs

Wall Street got 2022 off to a solid start with more record highs for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The S&P 500 rose 0.6%, a day after closing out 2021 with big gains for the third year in a row. The Dow rose 0.7% and the Nasdaq rose 1.2%. Technology companies and banks were among the biggest winners. Apple was up 2.5%, nudging the iPhone maker closer to becoming the first company to hit a market capitalization of $3 trillion, the AP reports. Tesla jumped 13.5% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after after reporting strong delivery numbers for 2021. The S&P 500 rose 30.38 points to 4,796.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 246.76 points to 36,585.06. The Nasdaq rose 187.83 points to 15,832.80.

Smaller company stocks also notched gains, a signal that investors felt confident about economic growth. The Russell 2000 rose 0.9%. Health care companies fell broadly and kept gains elsewhere in the market in check. Pfizer shed 4% despite news that the US expanded use its COVID-19 booster shots for children as young as 12. Industrial stocks also fell. Union Pacific, a railroad operator, slid 1.7%. The major challenges to the economy and corporate profits that investors navigated in 2021 remain potential headwinds in the new year, including the pandemic. Wall Street has been busy since December monitoring the latest wave of cases with the omicron variant.

Businesses and consumers are also still dealing with supply chain problems and persistently rising inflation that has made a wide range of goods more expensive. The rising costs could threaten to crimp consumer spending and weaken economic growth. The long list of concerns made for a choppy end to 2021, but didn't stop the broader market from notching another year of strong gains. Investors have several key pieces of economic data to look forward to during the first week of the new year. The Institute for Supply Management will give investors an update on the manufacturing sector on Tuesday and the services sector on Thursday. The big event on the economic calendar this week is the Labor Department's jobs report on Friday.

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