S&P 500 notches 6th record close of 2019 but stock market's trade-truce rally underwhelms

U.S. stocks ended solidly higher and the S&P 500 finished at a record after the weekend's Sino-American detente helped to fuel some buying optimism on Wall Street. However, gains for the three stock benchmarks finished off of intraday highs. The S&P 500 index closed 23 points, or 0.8%, at 2,964.47, marking its sixth record of 2019, according to Dow Jones Market Data, with the broad-market index also logging an all-time intraday peak at 2,977.86 before fading somewhat. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 117 points, or 0.4%, at 26,717, buoyed by a climb in shares of iPhone maker Apple Inc. but capped by a slump in shares of aeronautics and defense contractor Boeing Co. , which fell by more than 2%, cutting more than 50 points from the Dow's gains and representing the worst performer among the blue-chip index's components. The Nasdaq Composite Index closed up 1.1% at 8,091. In economic news, the Institute for Supply Management's index showed the manufacturing sector slowing to 51.7% in June from 52.1% in May, but the reading was better than economists expectations of 51.3%, per a MarketWatch poll. Meanwhile, construction spending fell by 0.8% in May, the largest decline since November and below economists expectations of 0.3% growth. Spending in April was revised higher to a 0.4% gain from the prior estimate of a flat reading.

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