The Dow Jones Industrial breached the 22,000 mark for the first time ever on Wednesday, boosted by Apple's latest financial results.
Apple jumped to a record high, after the world's largest publicly listed company reported strong results and iPhone sales, and signalled its upcoming 10th-anniversary phone is on schedule. The stock is up about 30 per cent this year.
The S&P 500 information technology index is up 22 per cent this year to date, as investors look for growth in an otherwise low-growth environment. It was the only S&P gainer with a 1 per cent rise.
The Dow has risen 11 per cent in 2017, even as Wall Street is losing confidence that President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress would be able to cut taxes and increase infrastructure spending this year.
The Dow hit the 20,000 mark in late January and crossed the 21,000 mark in just over a month on March 1, helped by a rise in banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
"Investors are completely immune to all the drama which is taking place in Washington because if you look at the performance of the Dow, it appears everything is hunky-dory," said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets UK.
"In earnings, it is all about Apple. The big news was about the production of iPhone 8; the flagship product for the firm will hit the market on time with no issues around production."
Two-thirds of S&P 500 companies have reported their second-quarter earnings so far and 72 per cent of them have beaten Wall Street's expectations, according to Thomson Reuters. In a typical quarter, 64 per cent of the companies beat expectations.
The results may reassure investors worried about high valuations. The S&P 500 is trading at about 18 times earnings estimates for the next 12 months, above its 10-year average of 14 times, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.
Data showed US private employers added 178,000 jobs in July, after adding 191,000 jobs in June. Economists polled by Reuters expected an addition of 185,000 jobs.
Reuters
