Wednesday, January 14, 2015

S&P 500 jumps back up into record territory

Stocks rose Friday as Wall Street extended its rally to a third day and sent the Standard & Poor's 500 index back up into record high territory.

The major indexes were on track to post gains for the week ahead of the Memorial Day weekend holiday. It would be the first weekly advance for the S&P 500 in three weeks.

The broad-based S&P 500 was moving closer to the 1900 mark and was up 0.3% at midday, jumping past its record closing high of 1,897.45 set on May 13.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.4%.

STOCKS: USA TODAY's live markets blog

In another sign the housing market was beginning to finally pick up in the spring selling season, sales of new homes rose a better-than-expected 6.4% in April.

That came on top of a report Thursday that showed existing home sales rose 1.3% in April, the first monthly gain this year.

The news helped boost homebuilders' stocks.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.53%, down from 2.55% Thursday. Crude oil rose 45 cents to $104.19 a barrel.

Overseas, Asian markets advanced. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index jumped 0.97% to 14,462.17 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.1% to 22,965.86.

European shares were mixed. London's FTSE 100 index was down 0.1% to 6,816 and Germany's DAX index gained 0.54% to 9,768.

Thursday, the Dow closed up 10.02, or 0.1%, to 16,543.08, the S&P 500 gained 4.46, or 0.2%, to 1,892.49, and the Nasdaq jumped 22.80, or 0.6% to 4,154.34.

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