All three major US equity indexes - the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq Composite - hit all-time highs, extending their peaks from October's last trading day on Friday.
In Monday's session, the Dow, a blue-chip index that groups mostly industrial stocks, closed up 94 points, 0.3%, at 35,913. It hit a record high of 36,010 after a run-up in consumer discretionary stocks, including casino operators Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, and Melco Resorts & Entertainment.
Runaway third-quarter profits for most American corporations in the banking to healthcare, auto and entertainment sectors has helped the Dow gain some 17% this year.
The S&P 500, which consists of the top 500 US stocks, including oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron, settled up 8 points, 0.2%, at 4,613. It hit an all-time high of 4,619 earlier.
Oil stocks gained as crude prices continued their upward march on Monday to the drum beat of OPEC and its allies, who indicated they were in no mood to add more barrels to the market than the 400,000 per day they had agreed to previously - despite consuming countries' demands for more.
The S&P 500 has been on a high since October. Year-to-date, it is up 23%.
The Nasdaq index, which groups Big Tech names such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google, closed the day up 98 points, or 0.6%, at 15,596, after hitting a record high at 15,599. The tech-heavy index is up 21% for the year.
Monday's rally might, however, be the last before the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting beginning Tuesday. The central bank is expected to discuss plans to taper some $15 billion a month from its monthly bond buying of $120 billion.
"The US economy has been pumped up higher by what seemed to be a never-ending stimulus, but that will change very soon", Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, said.
The US economy shrank 3.5% for all of 2020 due to shutdowns and other disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Growth this year has been spotty, with an annualised 3.5% expansion in the first quarter, 3.6% in the second, and 2% in the third.
The Federal Reserve envisions a 6.5% expansion for all of this year, although some officials at the central bank have more ambitious expectations, forecasting growth of up to 7%. Inflation remains a significant problem for the Federal Reserve as wages and the prices of almost everything, from coffee to oil and building materials, have soared from the lows of the novel coronavirus pandemic.