NEW YORK (AP) – The U.S. stock market is back to setting records.
After treading water for most of March and April, stocks are nudging deeper into record territory and are closing in on milestones with big zeros attached to them. The Dow Jones industrial average is within 30 points of 17,000 while the Standard & Poor’s 500 is just shy of 2,000 after rising 6 percent this year.
A harsh winter in the U.S. that hobbled growth made investors cautious. There were also worries about the conflict in Ukraine and slowing growth in China, the world’s second-biggest economy.
But now the economy appears to be on track again and investors are rediscovering their appetite for stocks.
While 17,000 would be the first 1,000-point marker crested this year, the Dow had two in 2013. It closed above 15,000 for the first time on May 7, then above 16,000 on November 21, during a year when the blue-chip index rocketed 27 percent.