With Dow record, Wall Street rallies past its AI spending fears

There was barely any red to be seen among Wall Street indexes on Monday as investors went right back into the water with the tech-heavy Nasdaq rallying 2.13%, showing a confident start to August even though July brought its biggest monthly decline since March.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average marked a record closing high for the first time since July 6 with an advance of 1.32%. This was the 22nd closing record for the blue-chip Dow so far in 2026. The Dow's biggest gainer was Boeing, which closed up 8% after the Federal Aviation Administration gave long-awaited approval for the Boeing 737 MAX 7.

The S&P 500 finished up more than 1%, putting it just 0.12% below its record closing high. The Nasdaq Composite, after flirting with a correction just days before, ended the day just 4.36% below its record close.

The lead S&P 500 sector was communication services, which finished up 4.3%. Meta Platforms was its biggest gainer, with a 6% rally. The owner of social media platform Facebook has quickly erased its post-earnings losses as investors look to have shrugged off last week's anxiety about cratering cash flow amid hefty spending plans in support of artificial intelligence.

The second-biggest gainer in the group, Alphabet, finished up 4.9%, pushing it well past any reminder of investor worries on July 23 about how much its ever-increasing capital spending plans were eating into its cash.

The S&P's second-strongest sector was consumer discretionary as Amazon also notched a record closing high.

The sector's leading percentage gainer was Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings. The cruise company, which climbed 6.6%, was rallying along with other travel companies such as airlines. This was most likely related to oil futures' drop of more than 5% as traders made their latest bets that the U.S. and Iran might restart peace talks.

Speaking of oil, the biggest laggard among the benchmark index's 11 major sectors was energy, which finished down 1%.