US stocks log record highs as investors look to Big Tech to sustain earnings growth

• Dow industrials push further beyond 35,000 in Monday's record-setting highs for stocks.
• Tesla and Facebook earnings are among those on deck for this week's earnings wave.
• The Federal Reserve will start its two-day meeting on Tuesday.

Stocks finished at record highs Monday as investors set their sights on earnings reports from major technology companies and appeared to set aside concerns about economic recovery in the face of rising coronavirus cases.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average pushed further above 35,000 after crossing that threshold for the first time on Friday. Stocks overcame losses earlier in Monday's session to build on record highs notched Friday, capping a rebound from a rout last week. Stocks have seen points of weakness in recent sessions on worries about increasing COVID-19 cases around the world as the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads.

Investors will start to plow through this week's earnings reports, with more than one-third of S&P 500 companies set to release results. Tesla's report is due after the bell Monday, followed by Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft on Tuesday, and Facebook on Wednesday.

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

• S&P 500: 4,422.26, up 0.24%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 35,144.12, up 0.24% (82.57 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 14,840.71, up 0.03%

S&P 500 companies are on track for their best earnings growth since 2009, with profit expected to increase 78.1% year-on-year in the second quarter.

"What we're looking for is what are companies doing with these strong earnings, what are they doing with their cash flow," Tom Hainlin, national investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, told Insider on Monday.

"If they're optimistic about the future, we're looking for them to invest that cash flow … new businesses, new initiatives, new factories," he said. "We're looking for what are companies doing with these proceeds to give us some insight from the corporate side into where we think the economy is going in the second half and into 2022," he said.

The Fed's two-day meeting that begins Tuesday and ends on Wednesday will likely produce commentary about its outlook on domestic and global economic recovery and investors will gauge when the Fed may begin tapering asset purchases or start raising interest rates.

Around the markets, billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham's firm GMO says stocks are overvalued by every metric.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is facing a legal battle with Volkswagen after rejecting a settlement deal with the German auto giant related to its emissions scandal.

Gold fell 1.3%, to $1,798.06 per ounce. Long-dated US Treasury yields slipped, with the 10-year yield at 1.27%.

Oil prices turned slightly higher. West Texas Intermediate crude was fractionally higher at $72.09 per barrel.

Bitcoin jumped 13%, to $38,955.23. The digital currency rose above $38,000 for the first time in about six weeks, partially on a report that Amazon is considering accepting bitcoin payments.