Investing.com - The Dow rallied Monday after clawing back early losses as a rally in tech stocks offset a decline in Boeing.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.79%. The S&P 500 added 1.47%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.02%.
The Dow fell more than 242 points early in Monday's trading, then reversed itself in a swing of more than 400 points to finish ahead by 201 points. Tech stocks rallied, led by a rise in Facebook and Apple as analysts upgraded their outlooks on both companies.
Bank of America upgraded its rating on Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to buy from neutral and raised its price target on the stock to $210 from $180, arguing expectations for a decline in the tech giant's hardware sales are somewhat overly negative. Apple's share price rose 3.5%.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) closed 1.5% higher after Nomura Instinet upgraded its rating on the social media stock to buy from neutral and raised its price target to $215 from $172.
The firm said its concerns over engagement trends at core Facebook have "eased," as users were transitioning to the company’s Stories feature faster than it had anticipated.
The broader tech market was also supported by a rally in Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) after the chipmaker agreed to buy Isreal's Mellanox Technologies (NASDAQ:MLNX) for $6.9 billion.
The deal requires Chinese regulatory approval as the country accounted for 24% of Mellanox’s $1.1 billion of revenue in 2018. If the deal is approved, it could pave the way for more deals in the semiconductor industry as companies have held back after China failed to approve Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) planned $44 billion purchase of NXP Semiconductors NASDAQ:NXPI).
In industrials, Boeing (NYSE:BA) pared steep early losses to end the day down 5.3%. It had been down more than 11% intraday. General Electric (NYSE:GE) clawed back some losses from last week.
Boeing came under pressure in early trade after several airlines grounded the company's new 737 Max 8 passenger jet following a deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash. It was the second crash in five months involving a Boeing 737 Max 8.
GE rose 3.3% after analysts at Citigroup delivered an upbeat assessment of the company's turnaround program.
"(R)ecent actions (including the close of the sale of GE Transportation to Wabtec and the announced agreement to sell GE Healthcare's BioPharma unit to DHR for $21.4 billion) buy GE some time to execute its turnaround in a deliberate/orderly manner," Citi said in a note.
On the trade front, meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said a date for a trade summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping has not been set and negotiations are ongoing.
In other corporate news, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 2.4% after the company walked back plans, announced in late February, to close nearly all of its retail stores and sell its cars online only. The company said it would reduce its 378 stores by about 50%.
On the economic front, investors digested mixed U.S. retail sales data showing an unexpected rise in January, but a downward revision to December's already sharp decline.
Top S&P 500 Gainers and Losers Today:
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Align Technology (NASDAQ:ALGN) and Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) were among the top S&P 500 gainers for the session.
Boeing (NYSE:BA), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and Hanesbrands (NYSE:HBI) were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.