Financial Issues Take the Spotlight as Stocks Rise Broadly to Records
NEW YORK -- Financial issues took center stage as the stock market posted a broad-based advance that resulted in yet another series of records.</br></br>Expectations that interest rates would continue to fall in the aftermath of Friday's weak report on May employment led to brisk activity among financial stocks, which have lagged the market through much of the year.</br></br>The broad market showed little direction through midafternoon, when the buying interest in the financial sector and futures-related buy programs combined to ignite a rally that broke the Dow Jones Industrial Average from a trading range on either side of 2900.</br></br>The average, which finished last week just above that level, posted its fourth record close in the past five sessions and its 10th since May 14 by surging 34.22 to 2935.19.</br></br>At the same time, the New York Stock Exchange Composite Index became the latest market measure to establish a record by rallying 2.18 to 200.21. The prior high was 199.34, set last Oct. 9.