Dow rises greater than 150 factors because the market seeks to regain file highs within the remaining days of 2020

Shares rose on Wednesday amid renewed vaccination optimism as traders searched for evidence of additional fiscal stimulus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 184 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500, along with the Nasdaq Composite, rose 0.4%.

Visa and Caterpillar each rose more than 2% to keep the Dow higher. Energy and materials were the best performing sectors in the S&P 500, rising 1.1% and 1.2% respectively.

The surge on Wednesday came after a UK regulator approved a coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca for emergency use. The approval came after the discovery of a new Covid strain in Great Britain, which was also confirmed in the USA. AstraZeneca shares rose 0.6%.

Wall Street was also weighing prospects for greater coronavirus relief as lawmakers continued to disagree on direct payments to Americans.

The Senate currently has no plans to vote on a bill to increase checks from $ 600 to $ 2,000. This measure was passed by the House late Monday. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced another bill linking the increased payments to President Donald Trump’s demands for technology and elections.

On Tuesday evening, the stimulus payments ran out, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

“While we’re happy with the impulses so far, we will likely need additional impulses as the post-holiday rising Covid cases will likely result in further regional lockdowns,” said Megan Horneman, director of portfolio strategy at Verdence Capital Advisors. “If that is the case and economic data starts to disappoint, we could see the ‘stay home’ names outperform again in 2021.

The number of Covid cases is still higher. The US is currently seeing at least 180,905 new cases and at least 2,210 virus-related deaths per day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University.

With only two trading days a year, the key averages were on the way to rising higher by 2020. The Dow rose nearly 7% over the course of the year while the S&P 500 rose 15.8%. Despite recent sales pressures, the Russell 2000 is still up 19% over the year.

The clear winner since the beginning of the year remains the Nasdaq Composite, which is up 43.7%.

“We expect strong economic growth to pick up again in 2021 following the headwinds from the pandemic in 2020 and the US-China trade war in 2019,” said Doug Rao, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors.

“While the leadership so far has been tight – mostly limited to the digital economy – we expect a deepening recovery as vaccines become widespread and consumers can re-enter the physical economy,” he added.

The key averages came from a session where they hit all-time intraday highs before closing lower.

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Correction: In an earlier version of this story, Doug Rao’s quote was misassigned.