NEW YORK — Maintenance and repair distributor DXP jumped 5.7 percent, while peer MSC Industrial climbed 3.8 percent as investors rotated into cyclical stocks ahead of this week's Federal Reserve decision and earnings deluge.
Defense contractor CACI gained 4.9 percent, engineered components company Graham Corporation rose 5.7 percent, and electrical systems provider Powell advanced 4.2 percent.
Money markets price a 90 percent probability the Fed holds rates unchanged at Wednesday's policy meeting. That expectation, combined with analyst expectations for S&P 500 earnings growth of 30 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, drove the broader equity advance. Approximately 36 percent of S&P 500 companies report quarterly results this week, including Amazon and Microsoft.
The S&P 500 gained 0.7 percent to 7,677, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8 percent to 26,169, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.3 percent to 52,362, and the Russell 2000 advanced 0.4 percent to 2,786. Microsoft and Nvidia closed up 1.5 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.
DXP's stock has experienced 17 moves greater than five percent over the last year. The distributor's third-quarter sales grew 8.6 percent year-over-year to $513.7 million, beating analyst expectations despite a profit miss.
