Tech leads US stocks higher as economic optimism grows and inflation fears cool

• Technology shares led US stocks higher as economic optimism grows and inflation fears cool.
• Cryptocurrencies recovered from a vicious weekend selloff. Gold prices climbed.
• The benchmark 10-year Treasury note slipped to 1.615% Monday compared to Friday's 1.629%.

US stocks closed higher on Monday as economic reopening optimism returned following the second straight week of losses. Technology shares led the gains, snapping a four-week losing streak, driven in part by the slight dip in Treasury yields. The Nasdaq composite was up 2% in afternoon trading before paring gains.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note slipped by 0.022% to 1.615% Monday compared to Friday's 1.629%.

"With the market pretty much range-bound these past two months, stocks head into the final full week of the month trying to break a two-week bull-bear stalemate," Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing product at E-trade Financial, said.

"Fed minutes last week seemed to have been shrugged off as the Fed continues its wait and see posture, which added wind beneath the tech sector's wings."

Adding to the optimism, daily coronavirus infections in the US have fallen to their lowest in roughly 11 months, revealing continued progress in battling the pandemic.

Still, Jeff Buchbinder, an equity strategist at LPL Financial, said the rest of the year might not be as bullish, as the market rally has already shown some signs of fatigue.

"However, in the second half of the year, as inflationary pressures build, interest rates potentially rise further, and this bull market gets a little older, the pace of stock market gains will likely slow and come with more volatility," he said.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. ET market close on Monday:

• S&P 500: 4,197.16, up 1%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 34,393.78, up 0.54% (185.94 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 13,661.17, up 1.41%

AMC Entertainment jumped as high as 15% as Redditors cheered the buying opportunity created after the company's largest shareholder sold the remainder of its stake.

Nvidia extended its gains after the company announced a four-for-one stock split last Friday.

Beyond Meat rose nearly 13% Monday to a two-week high after Bernstein gave the plant-based meat maker a double upgrade to "outperform" from "underperform" with a $130 price target.

Mutual funds this year have had near-record-low exposure to Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet's Google compared to 2020, a factor that has resulted in higher returns so far in 2021, according to a May 21 portfolio research strategy report by Goldman Sachs.

Cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, have retraced some losses after a week-long sell-off.

Bitcoin rebounded as much as 15% to trade around $38,000. The cryptocurrency slipped 18% to $33,674 at intraday lows on Sunday.

Ether rose roughly 40% to briefly touch $2,500 after a brutal stretch last week saw the second-largest cryptocurrency fall below $1,750 and lose billions in market capitalization.

Still, HSBC chief Noel Quinn on Monday said that his bank has no plans of initiating a cryptocurrency desk nor offering these to clients, Reuters first reported.

Oil prices climbed. West Texas Intermediate crude rose as much as 3.71%, to $65.94 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, climbed 3.00%, to $68.43 per barrel.

Gold rose 0.7%, to $1,881.95 per ounce, buoyed by an immense selloff in cryptocurrencies. The precious metal, according to Sophie Griffiths, an analyst at Oanda, is on track to book gains of over 6% across May in its best monthly performance since December.