US stocks open higher, adding to records

255

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks opened higher Friday, adding to a string of records on continued bullish sentiment about the US economic outlook as well as the European Central Bank’s stimulus.

Five minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 19,628.70, up 0.1 percent.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.2 percent to 2,249.90, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.4 percent to 5,437.47.

All three indices scored closed at new records Thursday after the ECB announced it was extending its stimulus program to December 2017.

But analysts are looking for a reversal.

“We tend to agree that the stock market is due for a pullback,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.

Yet expectations for tax reform after the Republican election sweep “seems likely to keep this party going into year end – or at least seems likely to keep it from getting busted in a big way,” O’Hare added.