New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange closed a volatile session modestly higher on Monday, with records for the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 as the Nasdaq rebounded pending a Fed monetary meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to final results at the close, the Dow Jones advanced 0.53% to 32,953.46 points, a new record.

The technology-intensive Nasdaq gained 1.05% to 13,459.71 points.

The broader S&P 500 index finished up 0.65% to 3,968.94 points, also a record.

The optimism about the economic reopening remained the main catalyst and benefited the cyclical stocks of the old economy.

But technology stocks, which in recent sessions have suffered from rising bond yields and inflation fears, made a good comeback late in the session.

They were helped by "a slight drop in yields on 10-year Treasury bills", which settled around 1.60% against 1.62% on Friday, said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Security.

"You still have this rotation of stocks from the new economy to stocks from the old economy even if it seems that the Nasdaq has bottomed out," added the analyst, citing among the big names in tech, Apple (+ 2.45%) and Cisco (+ 1.21%) which rose against Amazon (-0.25%) and Microsoft (-0.94%) which lost ground.

A favorable index on manufacturing activity in the New York area showed that activity had climbed to its highest level since July 2020. Prices paid to suppliers are also at their highest for 10 years, noted the Empire State monthly indicator

"This index was good. I am surprised that rates did not react more" by rising in reaction to the outlook for overheating and inflation, Mr. Cardillo said.

"The reason is that we are starting the FOMC meeting on Tuesday. Markets are waiting to see what the Fed says," he added.

The week will be marked on Wednesday by the press conference of Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, after the meeting of the Monetary Committee of the Central Bank.

The Fed is expected to reiterate the status quo, with overnight rates at zero, but investors will be watching its new economic forecast.

While the vaccination campaign is progressing well in the United States, the titles of airlines have soared such as American Airlines (+ 7.70%) or United Airlines (+ 8.26%).

The American test laboratory GenMark, which will be bought by the Swiss Roche for 1.8 billion dollars, took almost 30%.

The title of the chain of cinemas AMC, which plans to reopen its cinemas in California, has the favor of stock marketers, and climbed 25.81%.

© 2021 AFP