Facebook & Apple Help Lift Nasdaq, S&P 500 To New Highs

Technology industry giants—including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) , Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) , and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) —have helped send both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to record highs during Wednesday trading.

Both indexes were trading at record levels through afternoon trading on the back of upward movement from some of the biggest technology players. Shares of Apple were up 0.74%, with Microsoft and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) up over 0.50% as well.

Shares of Facebook climbed 1.62% to reach a new all-time high of $165.50 in afternoon trading. Mark Zuckerberg’s company made the most significant move of the big tech players so far today.

The four giant technology companies have turned things around after the brief tech dip in early June. Now, all four of these stocks currently sit at or near their 52-week and all-time highs. This positive momentum has also helped the Nasdaq and S&P 500 keep on rolling.

However, the Dow hasn’t faired as well today, thanks in part to IBM’s (NYSE:IBM) big decline after posting less-than impressive second-quarter earnings. Shares of IBM were down 4.6% through afternoon trading. The post-earnings slump also saw IBM shares briefly touch a new 52-week low.

S&P 500 Tech

Tech stocks are ready to break a record set in March 2000, near the heights of the dot-com bubble. The S&P 500 information technology sector is set to close above its all-time high of 988.49, which it broke almost directly after the opening bell on Wednesday – touching as high as 990.38.

The tech segment of the S&P 500 is up over 20% this year, which is far and away the strongest performing portion of the index’s 11 different sectors. What makes this even more shocking is the fact that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) aren’t even listed in S&P 500’s information technology sector – they are currently listed under consumer discretionary companies.

With these numbers climbing to seemingly unending heights, some fear the ride is doomed to fall off the tracks soon. For investors who remember when the dot-com bubble burst, there might be even more reason to pull back from the tech sector as those lofty heights are reached once again.

Of course, things might also wind up much different this time around, and these new technology companies are very clearly here to stay.

"At least in the second quarter and for the next quarter technology is the only sector that will see double-digit growth," Univest management division chief investment officer Tom Cassidy told Reuters.

"If you look at the sector, it isn't all that overvalued compared to the broader S&P index, except for a few names."

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