In a year full of market milestones, Wall Street crushed a couple more Tuesday, lifting the Dow Jones industrial average past the 18,000-point mark for the first time and delivering the Standard & Poor’s 500 index its second record-high close in two days.
Investors welcomed the latest encouraging news on the economy as the government said the U.S. grew at the fastest pace in more than a decade in the third quarter. The economic report card raised expectations for greater demand for fuel, driving oil prices higher as well as energy stocks, which have been beaten down this year by the sharp decline in the price of crude.
The Dow gained 64.73 points Tuesday to close at 18,024.17. That’s up 0.4 percent from its previous record close on Monday. The latest close is the Dow’s second 1,000-point milestone this year after closing above 17,000 for the first time in July.
The S&P 500 rose 3.63 points to 2,082.17. That’s a gain of 0.2 percent from its own all-time high recorded a day earlier.
The Nasdaq composite fell 16 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,765.42.
U.S. government bond prices declined. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.26 percent.
The stock market rally gave the Dow and the S&P 500 their fifth-straight gain. The indexes have recovered the last of the ground they lost in an early-December slump.
“This is going to end up being a bit better of a year for stocks and bonds than most people thought coming in,” said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.
While the U.S. economy has been gaining momentum, Europe is struggling to grow, Japan has slid into recession and China is straining to manage a slowdown. Russia envisions a recession next year.
