Stock market today: S&P 500 hits 8-day win streak as investors focus on Fed conference

• The S&P 500 extended its winning streak to eight days, rising nearly 1% on Monday.
• Broad-based gains across sectors and strong economic data have driven recent market performance.

The S&P 500 extended its winning streak to eight days on Monday.

The benchmark index was up nearly 1% on Monday, and is up nearly 8% since its winning streak began on August 8.

Monday's gains were broad based across sectors, with communication services and consumer discretionary stocks leading the way, followed by technology and basic materials.

Shares of Nvidia surged more than 3% on Monday, helped out by a bullish note from Wedbush regarding the future of AI tech spending.

The stock market gains over the past week-and-a-half have come amid better-than-expected economic data and earnings results, highlighted by July's retail sales data and Walmart's second-quarter earnings results, both released last week.

Now investors will turn their attention to the Federal Reserve's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell to give a speech on Friday.

While the Fed will not make an interest-rate decision this week, the meeting serves as a chance for Powell to prepare markets for a September interest-rate cut.

"The key is whether Fed Chair Powell is dovish. We expect this to be the case for two simple reasons: first, inflation is tracking better than consensus expected," Fundstrat's Tom Lee said in a note on Monday. "Second, labor market is softening as unemployment is rising. Why would the Fed be hawkish."

Aside from the Fed, investors will pay attention to second-quarter earnings results from retailers later this week, including Lowe's, TJX Cos., and Target, as well as commentary from the Democratic National Convention.

On Monday, Kamala Harris' campaign said the Vice President supports raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. closing bell on Monday:

• S&P 500: 5,608.25, up 0.97%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 40,896.53, up 0.58% (+236.77 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 17,876.77, up 1.39%

Here's what else is going on today:

• Meet the 15 members of the $100 billion club, who are jointly worth more than Alphabet.
• Goldman Sachs lowered the odds of a recession to 20% thanks to an ever-resilient US consumer.
• These are the top 10 holdings of the Mormon church's $55 billion stock portfolio, which include a new AI stock.
• The US stock market will hit fresh record highs over the next four weeks, but expect selling pressure to begin on September 16, according to Goldman Sachs.
• The rise of legal sports gambling is coming at the expense of stock investing, a new study found.

In commodities, bonds, and crypto:

• West Texas Intermediate crude oil decreased 2.45% to $73.69 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, dropped 2.51% to $77.68 a barrel.
• Gold was higher by 0.20% to $2,542.80 an ounce.
• The 10-year Treasury yield was down 2 basis points at 3.87%.
• Bitcoin rose 0.84% to $58,931.