Investors remained in a record-setting mood Tuesday, edging the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index to their latest all-time highs.
Pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies led the broad pickup in stocks, extending gains for the S&P 500 and Dow. The Nasdaq notched its first gain this week.
A positive outlook from homebuilders and encouraging news from Japan and Germany also helped lift markets.
“We’ve gotten good news on all of the worries since mid-October and we had much-better-than-expected earnings,” said Kate Warne, an investment strategist at Edward Jones. “As a result, it’s not surprising we’re seeing a series of record highs.”
The major stock indexes opened flat on Monday but quickly began to rise.
Germany’s ZEW measure of investor sentiment showed an improvement in November after 10 months of declines, allaying worries about a slowing economy and lifting European markets.
Developments in Japan, whose economy slipped into recession in the third quarter, provided some relief.
Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei index rose 2.2 percent amid expectations, later confirmed, that Japan’s government will delay a sales tax hike that was planned for next year.
U.S. stocks also got a boost from an increase in a measure of U.S. homebuilders’ confidence, which rebounded in November as sales expectations and buyer traffic improved.
The indexes continued to build on their gains throughout the day as investors piled into health care stocks. Pharmaceutical giant Actavis led all stocks in the S&P 500, vaulting 8.7 percent. Medical device maker Medtronic climbed 3.3 percent.
All told, the S&P 500 index added 10.48 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,051.80. Its previous closing high was set Monday.
The Dow rose 40.07 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,687.82. That’s just 0.2 percent higher than its most recent record close last Thursday. The Nasdaq composite gained 31.44 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,702.44.
