S&P 500 nears all-time high, Dow Jones, Nasdaq make solid gains, gold price, silver rate, Bitcoin price jump big

U.S. stock market indexes rose significantly on Monday. S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent and pulled closer to its all-time high set two weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 20 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.9 per cent. S&P 500 rose 32.52 points to 6,964.82. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 20.20 to 50,135.87, and the Nasdaq composite gained 207.46 to 23,238.67. Gold price rose 2 per cent to settle at $5,079.40 per ounce. It’s been swinging sharply after roughly doubling in price over 12 months, and it has bounced between $4,500 and nearly $5,600. Silver rate jumped 6.9 per cent. Bitcoin price was hanging just below $71,000 after drifting above the level during the weekend. It had dropped close to $60,000 last week, more than halfway below its record set in October.

Some of the winners from that rush into AI drove the market higher on Monday. Chip companies rose, for example, with Nvidia up 2.4% and Broadcom up 3.3%. They were two of the strongest forces pushing the S&P 500 upward.

Kroger climbed 3.9% after the grocer named a former Walmart executive as its new chief executive officer.


Transocean reversed an early loss and rose 5.9% after the offshore drilling company said it would buy Valaris in an all-stock deal valued at $5.8 billion. Valaris leaped 34.3%.

On the losing end was Hims & Hers, which sank 16% after Novo Nordisk filed a lawsuit and alleged Hims & Hers is unlawfully selling versions of its weight-loss treatments. The suit follows a move by the U.S Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to the ingredients needed to copy popular weight-loss medications.

Hims & Hers said, “Big Phama is weaponizing the US judicial system to limit consumer choice” in a post on the X account for the company’s communications team.

Novo Nordisk’s stock that trades in the United States rose 3.6%.

Workday fell 5.1% after the AI platform said its CEO, Carl Eschenbach, is stepping down. Company co-founder Aneel Bhusri is returning as chief executive.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of potentially market-moving reports coming later in the week. The U.S. government will offer the latest monthly update on the health of the job market on Wednesday. Friday will bring the latest monthly reading of inflation at the consumer level.