Investors were elated Thursday afternoon, as the-tech heavy Nasdaq closed at a record high of 5,132.95, beating its prior record close that occurred March 10, 2000. Nasdaq’s intraday high was 5,143.32.
The Dow also surged 180 points to 18,115, following the all-clear sign conveyed by Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen at the U.S. central bank’s meeting on interest rates Wednesday afternoon.
The Nasdaq was buoyed by large cap social media stocks such as Facebook Inc., which climbed by 1.36 percent, and bio-tech stock heavyweight Celgene Inc., which surged 4.24 percent. Also helping tech shares was the initial public offer of health care technology company Fitbit. The stock price surged 48.4 percent on its first day of trading.
Nasdaq Closes at Record High — What Does it Mean for Investors?
“I think [the Nasdaq high] is interesting but nothing that folks are going crazy over,” JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade, told CNBC. “They have benefited greatly from the Information Technology area and the Consumer Discretionary areas of the Nasdaq 100, as both have performed well over the last year. The market has benefited also from a few days of risk avoidance going into the Fed.”
It appears that market participants believe that the Federal Reserve will take a gradual approach to normalizing monetary policy. This means interest rates will likely remain lower for longer than previous expected.
Investors received some positive news on consumer inflation, which is carefully watched by the Federal Reserve when determining if it will increase interest rates. According to the Labor Department, the consumer-price index (CPI) increased 0.4 percent in May, the largest increase since February 2013. CNBC reports this increase occurred as gasoline prices increased.
Chris Gaffney, president of EverBank World Markets, told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s a good environment for stock investors still, even though we’re pretty lofty at these levels.”
Although investors are still concerned about a banking crisis in Greece, traders remain focused on comments by Yellen that decisions on interest rates would stay data dependent.
Read: 2015 Interest Rate Projections
Greece Still Faces Looming $1.7 Billion Loan Default
Despite the all-time high record for the Nasdaq, investors still face a wall of worry. One of those worries include potential for a Greek default; the country is expected to default $1.7 billion in loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund.
Eurozone leaders will try to solidify a deal on Greece’s financial bailout at an emergency summit meeting scheduled for Monday, after eurozone finance ministers failed to secure a deal Thursday between Athens and its creditors.
Photo credit: nakashi / Flickr
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Nasdaq Reaches All-Time High, Beats March 2000 Record
This article by David Becker first appeared on GoBankingRates.com and was distributed by the Personal Finance Syndication Network.
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