New York– US stocks finished higher on Monday as a rally in major tech shares contributed to the market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 459.67 points, or 1.78 per cent, to 26,287.03. The S&P 500 was up 49.71 points, or 1.59 per cent, to 3,179.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 226.02 points, or 2.21 per cent, to 10,433.65, Xinhua reported.

Shares of major US tech giants, the FAANG group of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet, all closed higher.

Of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors, technology and communication services were up 1.8 per cent and 2.15 per cent, respectively, among the best-performing groups.

Meanwhile, US-listed Chinese companies traded mostly higher on Monday, with eight of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P US Listed China 50 index ending the day on an upbeat note.

On the data front, economic activity in the US non-manufacturing sector grew in June after two consecutive months of contraction, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported on Monday.

The ISM non-manufacturing index registered 57.1 per cent, 11.7 percentage points higher than the May reading of 45.4 per cent, topping market consensus.

Wall Street’s major averages advanced last week that saw the Dow rise 3.3 per cent, the S&P 500 climb 4 per cent, and the Nasdaq jump 4.6 per cent.

The moves came despite the surging number of coronavirus infections in the country.

More than 2.9 million confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States, with over 130,000 deaths, as of Monday afternoon, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. (IANS)