New York, Bengaluru: The benchmark S&P 500 edged closer to a record high on Tuesday, matching its longest-ever bull-market run, as US stocks rose after some encouraging earnings reports and on hopes that the United States and China could resolve their tariff dispute.

At its session high, the S&P 500 was 0.14 per cent shy of its January 26 all-time high. The index’s bull run will turn 3,453 days old Wednesday, which, for some market watchers, will be the longest such streak in history.

The United States and China are slated to hold trade talks this week, but President Donald Trump told Reuters he does not expect much progress. Still, the trade-sensitive S&P industrial sector gained 0.65 per cent.

Meanwhile, the dollar weakened to an eight-week low against the Japanese yen on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump criticised the chairman of the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates. Trump also said he was “not thrilled” with the Federal Reserve for raising rates and that the central bank should do more to help him boost the economy.

That pushed the dollar lower and propped up prices of metals and crude oil.

As the greenback weakened, investors turned to other traditional flight-to-quality investments, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc.

The dollar fell to 109.76 Japanese yen, its lowest since June 27. Against the Swiss franc, the dollar weakened to its lowest since July 9, last at 0.987.

The dollar index, a measure of the greenback’s strength against a basket of six other currencies, fell 0.22 per cent to 95.535 after touching 95.440, its lowest since August 9.

“It would appear that Mr Trump would like to keep the US dollar a little on the weak side in order to remain competitive,” said CMC Markets chief markets analyst David Madden.

That task may prove difficult.

“Pushing the dollar down for long could be a tough task with safer bets in vogue on worries about trade wars and Turkey’s economic crisis,” said analysts at Western Union Business Solutions.

Against the US currency, the euro strengthened 0.4 per cent to a daily high of $1.154.

The energy sector, rose 1.07 per cent, the most among the 11 major S&P sectors. The materials index was up 0.58 per cent.

“Investors, overall seem more optimistic that the troubles with global trade may get resolved this week,” said Kate Warne, principal and investment strategist at Edward Jones in Des Peres, Missouri.

“We’ve seen a continuation of strong earnings and signs of stronger economic growth and you would expect investors to be confident in this kind of an environment and expect stocks to rise.”

At 11.01am EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 77.79 points, or 0.30 per cent, at 25,836.48, the S&P 500 was up 9.69 points, or 0.34 per cent, at 2,866.74 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 49.82 points, or 0.64 per cent, at 7,870.83.

The small-cap Russell 2000 index jumped 0.95 per cent to a record high.

Despite Trump’s criticism of the Fed’s monetary policy, the central bank’s minutes of its August policy meeting — due on Wednesday — is expected to indicate its confidence in economic growth and commitment to future rate hikes.

Shares of bank stocks rose. JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America and Citigroup and Morgan Stanley were up between 0.9 per cent and 1.2 per cent.

Medtronic rose 4.45 per cent, the most on the S&P, after the medical device maker’s profit beat estimates.

Retailer TJX rose 4.16 per cent after topping quarterly comparable-store sales estimates and raising its full-year earnings forecast.

At the bottom of the S&P was Coty, which tumbled 10.36 per cent after the beauty products maker missed sales estimates for the first time in six quarters.

Toll Brothers Inc jumped 12.52 per cent after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results that also lifted other home builders. PulteGroup, Lennar and D.R. Horton rose more than 3 per cent.

Online brokers Charles Schwab, ETrade Financial and TD Ameritrade tumbled between 3.5 per cent and 6.4 per cent after CNBC reported JPMorgan planned to roll out a free digital brokerage service next week.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.17-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 2.96-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 39 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 123 new highs and 20 new lows.

—Reuters