Wall Street brushed aside the intense political turmoil generated by president Donald Trump's impeachment on December 18 and saw all three main indices jump to new record highs on Thursday.
The S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 3,205.37 -- its first close above 3,200 - and a new record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average improved by 137.68 points or 0.5% to a record 28,376.96. The tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite rose 0.7% to end the day at a record 8,887.22, its seventh straight rise. The S&P 500 has risen nearly 7% since house speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump on September 24, said CNBC.
The real estate and consumer staples sectors led the S&P 500 to its record high, advancing 1.1% and 0.8%, respectively. Micron Technology shares contributed to Thursday's gains on the S&P. Its shares climbed 2.8% on account of strong quarterly results. The company posted earnings per share and revenue that topped analyst expectations.
Another huge contributor was Conagra, whose shares surged more than 15% and saw their biggest one-day gain since Nov. 5, 1984. Cisco Systems and 3M were the best-performing Dow components, heading up more than 1.5% each.
Trump was impeached along a largely party-line vote in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump is now only the third U.S. president to be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors. He will now face a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate and will be acquitted. The decision by House majority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to delay submitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate has added another new, and potentially explosive, wrinkle to the impeachment saga that might affect Wall Street shortened trading week next week.
Analysts said Wall Street largely ignored the impeachment news as the chances of Trump being unseated as president in the Senate are virtually non-existent. They point out the market's performance during Trump's impeachment process is looking eerily similar to that of the time when former President Bill Clinton was impeached on Dec. 19, 1998 by the Republicans. During Clinton's impeachment process, Wall Street surged more than 26%.
"It's fairly obvious that there just not going to be a removal," said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, a federally registered investment advisor based in Atlanta, Georgia. "As we've gone through this, we've seen it's become very partisan."
"All of that amounts to a neutral, and even somewhat positive, setup for the market. What you're seeing is this situation where there is a lot of stability or a lot more than there had been."
The buoyant mood on Wall Street was boosted by positive jobs reports that revealed weekly jobless claims falling to 234,000 from 252,000 the week before. On the other hand, economists polled by Reuters expected claims to fall to 225,000.
