NEW YORK: Shares of automakers surged Wednesday on better-than-expected December auto sales, while retailers and pharmaceutical equities also gained on a good day for US stocks.
General Motors easily topped expectations for December sales and gave a bullish appraisal of auto industry trends, while Ford and others, also bested expectations. GM shot up 5.5 percent and Ford 4.6 percent.
Stocks are gaining on the “combination of improving fundamentals and the prospects of a pro-growth administration,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3 percent to 19,942.16, taking it back to within striking distance of 20,000 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent to 2,270.75, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.9 percent to 5,477.00.
Retailers were strong on better sentiment about the holiday shopping season, with Best Buy rising 2.4 percent, Williams-Sonoma 1.6 percent, Bed Bath & Beyond 3.0 percent and Wal-Mart Stores 0.6 percent.
Word that holiday sales picked up at the end of December “changed the impression that the holiday shopping season was a diaster and it turned out to be much closer to what had been expected,” Hogan said.
Pharmaceutical stocks continued to rise, with Pfizer winning 0.9 percent, Amgen 1.4 percent and Gilead Sciences 3.0 percent.
Delta Air Lines shares gained 2.5 percent as it met or exceeded expectations for several key benchmarks in December. Revenues dipped 2.5 to 3.0 percent, but it was a smaller decline than the three to five percent drop previously projected.
