Wall St rises on 1st trading day of 2022; Apple hits $3 trln market cap

NEW YORK (Jan 4) - U.S. stocks rose on Monday, with Apple Inc  hitting a $3 trillion market capitalization and Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) posting bumper delivery numbers, giving investors cheer on the first trading day of the new year.

Apple's shares rose 2.5% to $181.96 after it became the first company to reach that milestone.

Tesla climbed 12.4% after the company's quarterly deliveries beat analysts' estimates, riding out global chip shortages as it ramped up production in China. 

The two stocks gave the biggest boosts to the S&P 500.

"Those are the two big drivers for the S&P," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Investment Management in Chicago.

But he also said investor worries about the Omicron variant may have eased slightly even with rising COVID-19 case numbers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a third dose of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 12 to 15. read more

All of Wall Street's main indexes ended 2021 with monthly, quarterly and annual gains, recording their biggest three-year advance since 1999.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 154.94 points, or 0.43%, to 36,493.24; the S&P 500 gained 20.48 points, or 0.43%, at 4,786.66; and the Nasdaq Composite added 147.64 points, or 0.94%, at 15,792.61.

Bank shares gained, with the banking index up 2.9% following a jump in U.S. Treasury yields on expectations of a series of U.S. interest rate hikes this year.

Wells Fargo's shares rose 5.3%, helped by their upgrade to "overweight" by Barclays.

The benchmark S&P 500 added 27% in 2021 and reported 70 record-high closes, its the second-most ever, in a tumultuous year hit by new COVID-19 variants and supply chain shortages.

The Dow added 18.7% for the year and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 21.4%.

Reuters