U.S. stocks are rising toward more records Tuesday, as Wall Street continues to expect bigger-than-usual relief for the economy to arrive Wednesday through a coming cut to interest rates .
The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in morning trading and less than 0.1% below its all-time high set in July, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 171 points, or 0.4%, to its own record set the day before , while the Nasdaq composite was up 0.8%.
Intel helped drive the market with a gain of 4.4% following a series of announcements , including an expansion of its partnership with Amazon Web Services to produce custom chips. Intel also detailed plans to build its foundry business.
Microsoft rose 1.4% after increasing its dividend and announcing a program to deliver up to another $60 billion to investors by buying back stock.
The calm gains as the U.S. stock market rallies back toward its records are a sharp departure from prior weeks, when the S&P 500 briefly fell nearly 10% below its all-time high. At the time, global markets were reeling on worries that a slowing U.S. economy could fall into a recession , along with some technical factors that forced hedge funds around the world to back out of a popular trade all at once.
