Nvidia helps the S&P 500 reach another record high

STORY: Monday brought more new record closing highs for the Dow and S&P 500…

and for shares of Nvidia, putting the AI ​​chip leader on the verge of dethroning Apple as the world's most valuable company.

The Dow gained about half a percent, the S&P rose about three-quarters of a percent and the Nasdaq climbed almost nine-tenths of a percent.

An index of semiconductor companies jumped 1.8% to a more than two-month high, also helped by a nearly 7% rise in shares of Arm Holdings.

Major technology stocks also rose sharply, including Alphabet, Microsoft and Tesla.

“What’s very interesting is that the trends haven’t really changed…”

Melissa Brown, managing director of investment decision research at SimCorp, said that despite the Federal Reserve starting to cut interest rates, which should benefit small and medium-sized companies, Big Tech stocks are still ahead.

“So stocks that have performed well continue to do well. Stocks that have performed poorly continue to perform poorly. So it's interesting that even though we saw these big Fed actions during the quarter, we didn't really see a turnaround.” I think that's probably because the Fed's actions were largely expected. And so at the beginning of the quarter or even a few months ago, the assumption was that the Fed would cut rates, so things just continue on the same path.”

Among the decliners was Caterpillar, which fell 2% after a brokerage downgrade.

And Boeing fell 1.3% after the planemaker reported a larger-than-expected third-quarter loss on Friday.

Earnings season is in full swing this week, and investors are also paying attention to key economic data, including September retail sales.