Stocks closed widely higher on Monday, signalling a positive start to the week on Wall Street following seven weeks of falls that threatened to derail the bull market that started in March 2020.

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The S&P 500 gained 1.9%, with technology and financial sector equities providing the most of the heavy lifting. The Dow Industrial Average gained 2%, while the Nasdaq gained 1.6%.

The S&P 500 increased 72.39 points to 3,973.75. The Dow gained 618.34 points to 31,880.24, while the Nasdaq gained 180.66 points to 11,535.27. Smaller firm stocks rallied as well. The Russell 2000 index increased 19.50 points, or 1.1%, to 1,792.76.

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Lingering concerns about inflation have been weighing on the market and have kept major indexes in a slump. The benchmark S&P 500 is coming off its longest weekly losing streak since the dot-com bubble was deflating in 2001. It came close to falling 20% from its peak earlier this year, which would put the index at the heart of most workers’ 401(k) accounts into a bear market.

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Banks made strong gains along with rising bond yields Monday, which they rely on to charge more lucrative interest on loans. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 2.86% from 2.77% late Friday. Bank of America rose 5.9%.

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Technology stocks also did some heavy lifting. Apple rose 4% and Microsoft rose 3.2%. The sector has been choppy over the last few weeks and has prompted many of the market’s recent big swings.

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VMware surged 24.8% following a report that chipmaker Broadcom is offering to buy the cloud-computing company. JPMorgan Chase jumped 6.2% after giving investors an encouraging update on its financial forecasts.