Dow rises 752 points to new highs on NYSE

Kohl's went up as Engine Capital asked for the sale of the e-commerce platform.

Dec 6, Reuters - The Dow led Wall Street shares higher on Monday as economy-linked banks and energy stocks charged back and investors braced for another rollercoaster ride like last week's.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up but lagged the Dow and S&P 500's gains, facing early headwinds from chipmakers due to a slide in Nvidia.

All 11 major S&P 500 sectors advanced, with financials, energy, and industrials up 2% or more, underscoring the leadership of cyclical stocks, while defensive utilities were up by a similar amount.

JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, said that some rotation was going on. The investors were looking ahead to Dec. 17's big expiration of options and futures, referred to as a quad witching, and favoring value shares over growth.

There are a lot of firms that have a double mandate right now. He said you are trying to take off risk, expiration related, while rebalancing your portfolio heading into 2022.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 752.06 points, or 2.17%, to 35,332. The S&P 500 gained 70.52 points, or 1.55%, to 4,608. 95 and the Nasdaq Composite added 174.91 points, or 1.16%, to 15,260. The S&P 500 Value Index was up 2%, while its growth counterpart was up 1.1%.

Honeywell International, Chevron Corp, Goldman Sachs, 3 M Co and Boeing Co rose by between 1.9% and 3.5%, powering the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher.

Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth Management said that if today's strength in the blue-chips can sustain itself, that might give the rest of the market the ability to feel confident.

Wall Street's major indexes swung wildly last week as investors digested news of the COVID 19 Omicron variant and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's hawkish comments about a faster taper to tackle surging inflation.

Kinahan said that the variant's news on the variant was not quite as severe as people had thought, but it has put a little bit of confidence in it.

Goldman Sachs reduced its outlook for U.S. economic growth to 3.8% for 2022, citing risks and uncertainty surrounding the emergence of Omicron. The investors were concerned about a potential hit to corporate earnings, particularly among retailers, restaurants and travel companies.

Norwegian Cruise Line, the largest decliner in the S&P 500, rose 12.1%, while Moderna Inc, down 15.9%, was the largest gainer on the S&P 500.

Among the most active stocks on the NYSE were Ford Motor Co up 1.4% to $19.42, Palantir Technologies, down 0.6% to $18.87 and Nio Inc, down 0.3% to $32.05.

Nvidia fell 2.8%, but it was still under pressure due to regulator concerns about its deal to buy British chip firm ARM Ltd. Peers Qualcomm Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. pared early losses, as did the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index, which was last off 0.2%.

Tesla Inc fell sharply after Reuters reported that the U.S. SEC opened a probe into the electric-car maker over whistleblower claims on solar panel defects, but pared early losses and was last off 0.8%.

Kohl's Corp jumped 6.7% after the hedge fund Engine Capital LP said it was pushing the department-store chain to consider a sale of the company or separate its e-commerce division to improve its stock price.

Advancers were favoring advancers because of the 1.81 to 1 ratio on the NYSE with a 3.21 to 1 ratio and a 3.21 to 1 ratio on the NYSE.

The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52 week highs and one new low, the Nasdaq Composite posted 23 new highs and 582 new lows.