NEW YORK - The Standard & Poor’s 500 index managed Wednesday to eke out a record at the close, besting the old one by just two-hundredths of a point.
The S&P 500 gained 9.5 points, or 0.52 percent, to 1,848.38. The last closing high was 1,848.36 on Dec. 31. With Wednesday’s rise, the index is now basically flat for the year. In 2013 the S&P 500 closed at record highs 45 times.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 108.08 points, or 0.7 percent, to 16,481.94. It is 94.72 points from its closing high, just one positive trading day away. The Nasdaq composite rose 31.87 points, or 0.76 percent, to 4,214.88. The tech-heavy index is still 16 percent below its high during the dot-com bubble more than a decade ago.
Financial and technology companies had some of the biggest gains. Bank stocks rose after Bank of America reported that its profit surged to $3.44 billion in the fourth quarter. Apple was up nearly 2 percent.
Investors have been worried stocks would stall in the new year after a surge of nearly 30 percent in the S&P 500 last year. The first few trading days in 2014 seemed to confirm their fears. As of the close of trading Monday, the S&P 500 was down 1.6 percent.
But a combination of positive economic reports and strong earnings Wednesday sent all three major indexes higher.
Bank of America climbed 2.3 percent after it reported a jump in earnings. The loans on its balance sheet continue to improve, and the bank’s provision for credit losses fell to $336 million, from $2.2 billion in the same period a year earlier. Even its mortgage division, which took huge losses after the housing bubble popped, improved.
Apple rose 2 percent, and Microsoft by 2.7 percent. On Friday, Apple plans to start selling its iPhone in China through China Mobile, the world’s largest cellphone carrier.
Seven of the 10 industries in the S&P 500 closed higher, led by telecommunications, information technology and financial services. The three were each up more than 1 percent.
Whether stocks can climb more in the coming days depends partly on corporate earnings reports now coming out for the fourth quarter of last year. Companies reporting today include Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, American Express and Intel.
After years of squeezing more and more profit out of every dollar of revenue, companies will have to lift that top line to hit their earnings targets for this year, said Joseph Tanious, global market strategist at JPMorgan. But he’s optimistic. “You will see strong revenue growth,” he said.
Tanious said a 4 percent to 6 percent increase in S&P 500 earnings per share this year shouldn’t be “too difficult.”
Financial analysts expect S&P 500 earnings per share to increase 5.6 percent for the fourth quarter, and 9.8 percent for all four quarters of the new year, according to S&P Capital IQ. Revenue growth for both periods is expected to be half the earnings growth.
Stocks were also pushed higher Wednesday by some encouraging economic reports.
A Federal Reserve survey of business confidence in the New York region rose. The Fed’s “Beige Book” survey showed economic growth remained healthy in most regions, helping bolster the belief that the U.S. economy will grow faster in the coming months. The report followed one on Tuesday showing strong retail sales during the holiday season.
Business, Pages 28 on 01/16/2014