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Stock Market News for Oct 26, 2021

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US stocks ended higher on Monday, with the Dow and S&P 500 closing at record highs, as investors geared up for a week of heavy earnings from some of the major tech bigwigs. All the three major indexes ended in positive territory.

How Did The Benchmarks Perform?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) added 0.2% or 64.13 points to close at a record high of 35,741.15 points. The blue-chip index also hit a new all-time intraday record of 35,787.04 points.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.5% or 21.58 points to finish at a record high of 4,566.48 points, after establishing a new intraday record high of 4,572.62 points. This is also the first time since Aug 16 that both the Dow and the S&P 500 closed at records highs on the same day.

The rally was driven by consumer discretionary, energy and materials stocks. The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (XLY) jumped 2.5%, while the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) advanced 1.5%. The Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLB) gained 1%. Eight of the 11 sectors of the benchmark index ended in positive territory.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.9% or 136.51 points to end at 15,226.71 points. The index almost touched it Sep 7 record closing high of 15,374.33 points. The rally was driven by Tesla, Inc. (TSLA - Free Report) . The electric vehicle maker’s shares jumped 12.7%. Tesla sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was down 1.23% to 15.24. A total of 10.89 billion shares were traded on Monday, higher than the last 20-session average of 10.41 billion. Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 1.91-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 1.76-to-1 ratio favored advancing issues.

Robust Earnings Lift Investors’ Sentiment

Investors are gearing up for one of the busiest earnings weeks, as a number of big companies report their quarterly results. It has so far been a good earnings season, which has already been helping markets. In total, at around 150 S&P 500 companies, or almost one-third of the broader market index are scheduled to report their quarterly results this week.

Of the 119 companies in the S&P 500 component that have so far reported their quarterly results, 84% have posted numbers that have surpassed analysts’ expectations.

Monday’s rally was driven by consumer-discretionary, energy, and materials. The energy stocks went on a rally after West Texas Intermediate crude futures hit $85 per barrel.

This week, investors will be waiting for some of the biggest tech names to report their quarterly results that include Alphabet, Inc. (GOOGL - Free Report) , Microsoft Corporation (MSFT - Free Report) , Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) and Apple, Inc. (AAPL - Free Report) .

No economic data was released on Monday.

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