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The benchmark S&P 500 Index hit a new intraday high Monday, as did 15 component stocks, while U.S. investors anticipated more economic stimulation from the Federal Reserve this week.
The list includes Apple AAPL, +1.00%, which rose to a record intraday high of $249.25 before closing at $246.58. Here’s a chart showing how Apple’s stock has performed over the past year:
The stock closed Dec. 31 at $157.74. It was up 56% year-to-date through Monday’s close. For 12 months it was up 15%.
The S&P 500 SPX, +0.56% increased as much as 0.7% to post a new intraday high of 3,044.08 points, before setting its new all-time closing high of 3,039.42 for a 0.6% gain to end the trading session. The benchmark index had set its previous intraday and closing highs July 26.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.49% added 0.5% Monday to close at 27,090.49, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +1.01% was up 1%.
Money spigot
The Federal Open Market Committee will hold its regular meeting Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a policy announcement at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday. This follows a major change of direction for the Federal Reserve, which has started a program to purchase $60 billion a month in U.S. Treasury bills until the end of the year, after taking extraordinary action to shore up overnight liquidity, starting in September. Sven Henrich has called these actions “stealth intervention.”
The central bank lowered the federal funds target range by a quarter point July 31 and then by another quarter point Sept. 18 to the current range of 1.75% to 2%. Here’s why investors may see a third cut Wednesday.
New stimulus at home, negative interest rates in Europe and the European Central Bank’s decision to resume its own bond-buying to the tune of $20 billion euros ($22 billion) a month can all be seen as contributing factors to rising stock and bond prices in the U.S. Yield-seeking investors are turning away from Europe and Japan, where bonds with negative yields to maturity total more than $17 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Read: Mario Draghi saved the euro, but leaves ECB at a crossroads
Record highs
Among the S&P 500, 14 companies saw their stocks hit all-time highs (adjusted for splits and spin-offs) Monday, but the list includes 15 stocks, with both Alphabet GOOG, +1.97% GOOGL, +1.95% share classes represented. Here’s the list in alphabetical order:
| Company | Ticker | All-time intraday high set Oct. 28 | Closing price – Oct. 28 | Price change – Oct. 28 | Price change – 2019 |
| Allegion PLC | ALLE, +1.76% | $116.55 | $115.33 | 1.8% | 44.7% |
| Alphabet Inc. Class A | GOOGL, +1.95% | $1,299.24 | $1,288.98 | 2.0% | 23.4% |
| Alphabet Inc. Class C | GOOG, +1.97% | $1,299.31 | $1,290.00 | 2.0% | 24.6% |
| Apple Inc. | AAPL, +1.00% | $249.25 | $249.05 | 1.0% | 57.9% |
| CDW Corp. | CDW, +0.91% | $127.01 | $125.99 | 0.9% | 55.4% |
| Charter Communications Inc. Class A | CHTR, +1.06% | $470.31 | $467.09 | 1.1% | 63.9% |
| Dover Corp. | DOV, +0.54% | $104.95 | $104.21 | 0.5% | 46.9% |
| First Republic Bank | FRC, -0.21% | $108.35 | $107.41 | -0.2% | 23.6% |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | JPM, +0.38% | $127.21 | $126.51 | 0.4% | 29.6% |
| KLA Corp. | KLAC, +2.85% | $175.25 | $174.78 | 2.8% | 95.3% |
| Lam Research Corp. | LRCX, +4.15% | $282.00 | $281.25 | 4.1% | 106.5% |
| Microsoft Corp. | MSFT, +2.46% | $145.67 | $144.19 | 2.5% | 42.0% |
| Sherwin-Williams Co. | SHW, +0.58% | $581.22 | $578.24 | 0.6% | 47.0% |
| United Technologies Corp. | UTX, +0.06% | $144.63 | $143.04 | 0.1% | 34.3% |
| Xylem Inc. | XYL, +0.88% | $85.67 | $84.04 | 0.9% | 26.0% |
You can click the tickers for more about each company.
Don’t miss: Ratings firm’s ‘bottom 10’ junk bonds include J.C. Penney and U.S. Steel
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