Wall Street will be eyeing to scale a new milestone when the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index crosses 1,700 possibly Tuesday.
S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) posted a 2-point gain in pre-market trading today after the index closed Monday at an all-time high, shying the 1,700 milestone by just 5 points.
Monday saw S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) rising to its 23rd record close this year, after the financials and health-care sectors pumped the index to a higher level.
According to FactSet, the second-quarter sales for companies belonging to S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) index are on track by rising 1 percent over last year. During the first quarter, they declined 0.1 percent.
Second fastest 100 points rise
If S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) tops 1,700 on Tuesday, it would mark the benchmark’s second-fastest rise ever on a 100-point move, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
During 1998, the benchmark jumped from 1,000 to 1,100 level in just 50 calendar days. However, the index last saw 1,600-level, 80 calendar days ago.
Wall Street would be keenly watching the results from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Tuesday after poor performance posted by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) a few days back.
The technology giant Microsoft posted not so impressive revenue numbers at $19.9 billion below The Street’s expectation of $20.7 billion.
McDonald posted earnings of $1.38 per share for the second quarter, against analysts’ estimates of $1.41 per share.
S&P 500 surged 150 percent since March 2009
The benchmark S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) surged 150.6 percent since the bull market began in March 2009, making it the fifth-best bull run in history.
Market showing signs of strength
Despite facing headwinds such as poor global growth, recent hike in long-term interest rates and eventual FED tapering, the stock market has shown resilience. According to Eric Wiegand, a senior portfolio manager at U.S. Bank wealth management, market’s strong showing reflects its strength.
According to Adam Shell and Rachel Huggins of USA Today, S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) posted record gains amidst investors’ increasing shift in preference from defensive sectors such as utilities and consumer staples to more offensive sectors such as industrials, consumer discretionary and financials.
