A screen above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the Dow close. Richard Drew / AP
"Wall Street, Climbing Sharply, Skips Washington's 'Soap Opera,'" a New York Times front-pager by Nelson Schwartz: "[A ]market surge based on political hopes has been replaced by one more firmly grounded in the financial realm."
- "None of the soap opera in Washington matters," said Frank Sullivan, chief executive of RPM International, a Cleveland-based maker of specialty coatings and sealants like Rust-Oleum. "Nobody in business cares about who talked to who in Russia."
- "Besides steady economic growth or less regulation, investors ... have been encouraged by the loose reins of central banks like the Federal Reserve ... Inflation ... remains tame."
- Why it matters: "Dow Hits 22000, Powered by Apple ... another milestone in the long bull market as investors bet that a resurgent global economy can offset lukewarm U.S. growth," per Wall Street Journal's Akane Otani and Ben Eisen.