Dow tops 22,000 for 1st time amid Apple rally

NEW YORK ISTANBUL

The Dow topped 22,000 points for the first time in opening trading on Aug. 2, bolstered by a six percent gain in Apple, the latest blue-chip company to report strong earnings.

About three minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 22,011.48, up 0.2 percent and on track for its sixth-straight record close, as reported by AFP. 

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.1 percent to 2,477.89, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.4 percent to 6,390.34.

The Dow has risen 11 percent in 2017, even as Wall Street is losing confidence that U.S. President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress would be able to cut taxes and increase infrastructure spending this year.

The Dow hit the 20,000 mark in late January and crossed the 21,000 mark in just over a month on March 1, helped by a rise in banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

“Investors are completely immune to all the drama which is taking place in Washington because if you look at the performance of the Dow, it appears everything is hunky-dory,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets U.K., as quoted by Reuters. 

“In earnings, it is all about Apple. The big news was about the production of iPhone 8, the flagship product for the firm will hit the market on time with no issues around production.” 

Apple jumped in trading, a day after the world’s largest publicly listed company reported strong results.