Dow And S&P 500 Climb To New Record Closing Highs

(RTTNews) - After showing a lack of direction over the past few sessions, stocks showed strong move to the upside over the course of the trading day on Thursday. The gains lifted the Dow and the S&P 500 to new record highs, while the Nasdaq reached its best level in over two months.

Networking stocks showed a substantial move to the upside on the day, driving the NYSE Arca Networking Index up by 2.9 percent. The index rebounded after closing lower for four consecutive sessions, reaching a two-month closing high.

Ciena (CIEN) helped lead the sector higher, with the provider of fiber-optic networking equipment surging up by 18.4 percent after reporting better than expected second quarter results and providing upbeat guidance.

Significant strength was also visible among gold stocks, as reflected by the 1.9 percent gain posted by the Philadelphia Gold/Silver Sector Index. The strength in the sector came as gold for August delivery climbed $9 to $1,253.30 an ounce.

Railroad stocks also saw considerable strength on the day, resulting in a 1.5 percent gain by the Dow Jones Railroads Index. With the gain, the index reached a new record closing high.

Commercial real estate, software, defense, and internet stocks also posted strong gains, moving higher along with most of the other major sectors.

The major averages remained firmly positive throughout the afternoon, closing near their best levels of the day. The Dow climbed 98.58 points or 0.6 percent to 16,836.11, the Nasdaq jumped 44.58 points or 1.1 percent to 4,296.23 and the S&P 500 advanced 12.58 points or 0.7 percent to 1,940.46.