Wall Street ended higher on Monday, with surging financial shares helping lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average to an all-time peak, while energy firms jumped after a U.S. military strike captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Investors bet Washington’s move against Venezuela’s leadership would allow U.S. firms access to the world’s largest oil reserves. The US President’s administration plans to meet with executives from U.S. oil companies this week to discuss boosting Venezuelan production. The S&P 500 energy index .SPNY rose 2.7%to its highest since March 2025, with heavyweights Exxon Mobil XOM.N and Chevron CVX.N both surging.
Weapons manufacturers also advanced after Washington’s military action. Lockheed Martin LMT.N and General Dynamics GD.N climbed, while the S&P 500 aerospace and defense index .SPLRCAERO rose to a record high. Tesla TSLA.O climbed 3.1% after seven straight sessions of losses. Nvidia NVDA.O dipped 0.4% and Apple AAPL.O declined 1.4%.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.64% to end the session at 6,902.05 points.The Nasdaq gained 0.69% to 23,395.82 points, while the Dow rose 1.23% to 48,977.18 points. Volume on U.S. exchanges was heavy, with 19.1 billion shares traded, far exceeding the average of 15.9 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.The S&P 500 financials index .SPSY jumped 2.2% as investors looked to upcoming quarterly reports. Analysts on average see S&P 500 financial companies growing their earnings 6.7% year-over-year in the December quarter. Goldman Sachs GS.N and JPMorgan Chase JPM.N rose more than 3% and hit record highs.
Wall Street’s main indexes posted double-digit gains in 2025 for the third consecutive year, a run last seen in 2021. Data showed U.S. manufacturing contracted more than expected in December, extending a 10-month slump. The spotlight will now be on the monthly nonfarm payrolls on Friday, which could influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy in 2026. Markets are pricing in about 60 basis points of interest rate easing this year, according to LSEG.
Cryptocurrency-linked shares advanced as bitcoin BTC= hit a more than three-week high. Strategy MSTR.O , formerly MicroStrategy, climbed almost 5% and Coinbase COIN.O rallied 7.8%. Goldman Sachs upgraded Coinbase to “buy” from “neutral”. Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 .AD.SPX by a 2.1-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted 60 new highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 107 new highs and 49 new lows.
Reporting by Purvi Agarwal and Nikhil Sharma in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and David Gregorio.
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