The record hunt on Wall Street continued into the beginning of the week

The record hunt on Wall Street continued into the beginning of the new week, with investors betting on good business results. The US reporting season continues to pick up speed over the course of the week, with major technology companies in particular opening their books. A total of 150 companies from the S&P 500 will present their quarterly figures. The reasons for the optimism of investors were, among other things, the good results of the banks and of companies in the consumer goods sector from the previous week, which at the same time dampened worries that high inflation and labor shortages would melt profits. It is remarkable how the companies have managed to pass price increases on to customers without losing sales, said CMC market expert Michael Hewson. The Dow Jones index improved 0.2 percent to 35,741 points. The S&P 500 gained 0.5 percent. Both indices thus closed at record levels. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.9 percent. The 2098 (Friday: 1671) price winners were compared to 1261 (1615) losers. 113 (140) titles closed unchanged. After the stock market closes, Facebook will open its books, the share closed 1.3 percent after initial sales. On Tuesday, it’s the turn of Microsoft, Twitter and Alphabet, and Apple and Amazon will follow later in the week. "Without a doubt, the technology sector is the most important sector for the S&P 500," said Eric Mintz, co-portfolio manager at Eagle Asset Management. "I expect broadly robust results from the technology sector." Another topic was how central banks around the world will react to rising prices. In addition, new signals could come from the ECB and the Bank of Japan over the course of the week, after the US Federal Reserve has already announced a possible increase in interest rates for the coming year. The US ten-year return of 1.64 percent was at the recently significantly increased level. The market participants also had an eye on how the extensive spending package by US President Joe Biden, which was discussed further in the US Congress, will continue. Spending on this scale would further support growth, said Flowbank investment expert Esty Dwek. "The question now is how things are going with taxes and how all of this should be financed," she added.