Nasdaq back in black for 2015; Dow up nearly 400 pts
U.S. stocks surged on Tuesday, lifting the Nasdaq back into the black for the year, with Wall Street taking its cue from a surge in Chinese stocks and other global equities.
The market's rally is a "reflection of the fact that the world didn't come to an end over the weekend -- it's a sigh of relief that China is still the second-largest economy in the world," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities. "As impressive as this rally is, it gets us literally back to where we were at last Tuesday's close."
After a 400-point jump, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (dji) added 390 points, or 2.4 percent, at 16,493.
"The Shanghai index closed positive, and we had other Asian markets teeing off of that, along with European markets," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.
After its second largest weekly loss this year, the S&P 500 (spx) added 48 points, or 2.5 percent, to 1,969, with health care leading gains among its 10 major industry groups, all of which rose. The Nasdaq Composite (comp) gained 128 points, or 2.7 percent, to 4,812, a level that had it 76 points higher than where it stood at the start of 2015.
"Friday's selloff was people wanting to take as much as risk as possible off the table before the three-day weekend. Now that people are back, they are willing to take more risk today," JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade, said.
Shares of Apple (AAPL) jumped nearly 3 percent, ahead of the technology company's event Wednesday in San Francisco, at which Apple is expected to unveil a new Apple TV system and possibly a larger part to be played in the home by Siri, its voice-activated digital assistant.
"The expectations are around different enhancements to the iPhone 6, so probably not earth-shattering news, but it'll constitute some reason for chatter," Luschini said.
The broad-based rally came after the Labor Day holiday, with sentiment also bolstered by deal activity, which included Teco Energy on Friday agreeing to a $6.5 billion buyout by Emera, and Media General saying it would purchase Meredith in a deal valued at about $2.4 billion.
"We're still in the midst of this corrective process -- we have fundamentals domestically, which remain pretty good, and then internationally, which remain unanswered," Luschini said.
U.S. stocks slid last week after the August jobs report yielded little clues as to whether the Federal Reserve would opt to hike interest rates for the first time since 2006 at a meeting next week.
"Overall, I don't think last Friday's employment report influenced them (Fed officials) one way or another," Kinahan said.