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S&P 500 Closes Higher as Bulls Load Up on Tech, Healthcare

Published 19/10/2021, 21:08
Updated 19/10/2021, 21:08
© Reuters.

© Reuters.

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 closed higher Tuesday, as rising health care stocks and an Apple-led climb in tech underpinned bullish bets on the broader market.

The S&P 500 was up 0.74%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.57%, or 199 points, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.71%.

Health care stocks led the gainers on the day, with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) up 2% after rising its guidance for the full-year, citing strength across its businesses.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW), Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX), Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) also pushed the sector higher, with latter up 1% after releasing positive update on its robotic-assisted platform.  The move in IRSG comes just ahead of the its quarter results expected after the market close.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) delivered quarterly results that beat on both the top and bottom lines, but warned that of further inflation pressures, sending its share price down more than 1%.

Tech stocks continued their positive start to the week, supported by a rise in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), as the tech giant's new Macbook Pro line, powered by upgraded M1 chips, drew positive comments from Wall Street.

"The anticipated chip update surpassed expectations on performance and power efficiency. New chips have a much larger dedicated area for GPU cores and video encoders and decoders,"  Oppenheimer said in a note.

"The tightly integrated hardware and software … [will] likely allow Apple to take share among both consumer and professional users," it added.

The bid up in tech comes even as yields advanced, with the United States 10-Year yields topping 1.6%.

Energy stocks were more than 1% as falling temperatures in China exacerbated concerns that the supply crunch will likely persist and push oil prices higher.

On the economic front, housing activity cooled amid supply-chain disruptions and labor market shortages.

Housing starts fell 1.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.555 million units last month, confounding economists' forecast for

Building permits slumped 7.7% in September to a 1.589 million, larger than the 2.4%  decline expected.

In others news, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSE:BITO), trading under the ticker "BITO," rose nearly 1% in its trading debut.

Bitcoin rose nearly 3% to $63,800, just shy of its all-time high of $64,778, boosting crypto-related stocks.

Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA), Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT) were more than 3% higher.

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