NEW YORK — Wall Street closed its latest winning month and quarter with more records on Monday. The drift higher for U.S.
stocks followed a wild start to the week for financial markets in Asia, where Japanese stocks tumbled and Chinese indexes soared. The S&P 500 climbed 0.4% to an all-time high and clinched its fifth straight winning month and fourth straight winning quarter.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 17 points, or less than 0.1%, to its record set on Friday. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.
4%. Wall Street has catapulted to records on hopes the slowing U.S.
economy can keep growing while the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to offer it more juice. A big test will arrive Friday, when the U.S.
government offers its latest monthly update on the job market. An overriding worry on Wall Street is whether the economy may already be heading for a recession. Even though the Fed cut rates earlier this month and has indicated more relief is on the way, U.
S. employers have already begun paring back on their hiring. Before this month, the Fed had kept interest rates at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to stamp out high inflation.
"Payrolls remain the biggest catalyst" for the U.S. stock market until the election, strategists and economists at Bank of America wrote in a BofA Global Research report.
At Goldman Sachs, economist David Mericle said he's expecting Friday's report to show hiring in September was stronger than the 146,000 growth in payrolls .