S&P 500 Hits Fresh Record High

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Led higher by retailers, the broad S&P 500 jumped to a fresh all-time high Wednesday.

Today's Markets

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 70.5 points, or 0.45%, to 15821, the S&P 500 advanced 14.3 points, or 0.81%, to 1782 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 45.7 points, or 1.2%, to 3965.

With little in the way of economic data on the docket, traders had their sights set on corporate news. Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) had to restate its fourth-quarter results as a result of damages resulting from a packaged coffee dispute with Kraft (NASDAQ:KRFT). IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE:ICE) and NYSE Euronext have also finalized their merger.

Macy’s (NYSE:M) revealed third-quarter earnings of 47 cents a share, on sales of $6.28 billion. Wall Street expected the retailer to earn 39 cents a share on revenues of $6.19 billion. Shares leaped more than 5% in pre-market action.  Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) reports after the close.

The S&P 500 hit fresh record highs, but not all market participants were bullish: "I don’t mean to sound cold myself but this rally is on shaky legs and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a little pullback here," Michael Block, chief strategist at Rhino Trading Partners.

There were 26 S&P components that hit records on the day. In total 16 were consumer discretionary names, and 4 were tech players.

Elsewhere, in commodities, U.S. crude oil futures rose 84 cents, or 0.9%, to $93.88 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline rallied 1.6% to $2.6128 a gallon. Gold fell $2.80, or 0.22%, to $1,268 a troy ounce.