The S & P 500 notched a record close Friday for the first time in more than two years — and over that time, no Club stock has performed better than Eli Lilly . The broad market index ended Friday’s session at 4,839.81, edging out its prior all-time high close of 4,796.56 set on Jan. 3, 2022. Including Friday’s gain, it rallied around 35% from its bear market low, reached on Oct. 12, 2022 . While Jim Cramer christened a new bull market in January 2023 before last year’s incredible rally, some observers wait until the S & P 500 closes at a new record — as it did Friday — to make the official declaration. Eli Lilly more than doubled since the S & P 500’s prior 2022 record and Friday’s close on optimism around the opportunities for tirzepatide — the active ingredient in its newly approved Zepbound weight-loss drug and its Mounjaro type-2 diabetes drug cleared in May 2022. Tirzepatide is also being tested to treat a slew of other diseases and conditions. Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia and cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks are in second and third place over that same period — up 97.5% and 86.2%, respectively. Zoom in and look at just 2023, it was the same stocks but in a different order: Nvidia more than tripled, Palo Alto rose 112%, and Lilly gained just over 59%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average set its first record close since January 2022 in December and ended Friday’s session at a record high above 37,800. The Nasdaq, on the other hand, ended Friday at 15,310.97 — meaning it needs to rally about 5% more to take out its Nov. 19, 2021 record high. It is worth noting that the Nasdaq 100 , which is weighed more heavily in Big Tech, did close at another record high Friday. Quite a bit has happened on Wall Street since the S & P 500’s old high in January 2022. At that time, the Federal Reserve had yet to embark on a series of interest rate hikes that took its benchmark overnight lending rate to its highest level in 22 years. The peak in Covid-era inflation…
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