{"id":62082,"date":"2026-05-18T17:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-hits-record-highs-as-industrial-gains-offset-legacy-tech-slump\/62082\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:09:19","slug":"dowjonestodaydow-jones-hits-record-highs-as-industrial-gains-offset-legacy-tech-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/dowjonestodaydow-jones-hits-record-highs-as-industrial-gains-offset-legacy-tech-slump\/62082\/","title":{"rendered":"[DowJonesToday]Dow Jones Hits Record Highs as Industrial Gains Offset Legacy Tech Slump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/indices\/dowjones\/today\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Dow Jones Today\">Dow Jones<\/a> Industrial Average (^DJI)<\/strong> <strong>was up 159.95 (0.32%) points today<\/strong>, closing at <strong>49,686.12<\/strong>. On <strong>Monday, May 18, 2026<\/strong>, market sentiment was buoyed by a <strong>resurgence in industrial manufacturing<\/strong> and continued <strong>AI-sector momentum<\/strong>. Despite lingering inflation concerns, the blue-chip index reached new heights as investors favored high-quality earnings over speculative growth. <strong>Dow Futures (YM=F)<\/strong> also showed strength, rising <strong>128.00 (0.26%)<\/strong> to reach <strong>49,745.00<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The main narrative driving the market was a <strong>strategic rotation into industrial and healthcare sectors<\/strong> following favorable regulatory updates and legal resolutions. <strong>3M (<a href=\"\/stock\/MMM\">MMM<\/a>)<\/strong> was the standout performer, jumping <strong>3.70%<\/strong> to <strong>$148.62<\/strong> on news of a major settlement resolution. <strong>Nvidia (<a href=\"\/stock\/NVDA\">NVDA<\/a>)<\/strong> followed with a <strong>1.77%<\/strong> gain to <strong>$225.01<\/strong>, fueled by persistent demand for enterprise AI hardware. <strong>Johnson &amp; Johnson (<a href=\"\/stock\/JNJ\">JNJ<\/a>)<\/strong> and <strong>Cisco (<a href=\"\/stock\/CSCO\">CSCO<\/a>)<\/strong> also posted strong gains of <strong>1.61%<\/strong> and <strong>1.33%<\/strong>, respectively, while <strong>UnitedHealth Group (<a href=\"\/stock\/UNH\">UNH<\/a>)<\/strong> rose <strong>1.00%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, downward pressure came from legacy tech and interest-rate-sensitive retail stocks. <strong>IBM (<a href=\"\/stock\/IBM\">IBM<\/a>)<\/strong> was the day&#39;s biggest loser, falling <strong>2.42%<\/strong> to <strong>$213.40<\/strong> after a cautious analyst note regarding its cloud transition. <strong>Home Depot (<a href=\"\/stock\/HD\">HD<\/a>)<\/strong> dropped <strong>2.14%<\/strong> to <strong>$303.85<\/strong>, as high mortgage rates continued to weigh on home improvement spending. Other notable decliners included <strong>Salesforce (<a href=\"\/stock\/CRM\">CRM<\/a>)<\/strong>, which fell <strong>1.64%<\/strong> to <strong>$168.45<\/strong>, and <strong>Sherwin-Williams (<a href=\"\/stock\/SHW\">SHW<\/a>)<\/strong>, losing <strong>1.36%<\/strong>. <strong>JPMorgan Chase (<a href=\"\/stock\/JPM\">JPM<\/a>)<\/strong> and <strong>Caterpillar (<a href=\"\/stock\/CAT\">CAT<\/a>)<\/strong> also saw declines of <strong>1.12%<\/strong> and <strong>1.22%<\/strong>, as the broader financial and construction sectors faced a cooling period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was up 159.95 (0.32%) points today, closing at 49,686.12. On Monday, May 18, 2026, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[17736],"tags":[293,633,1773,3016,3878,4380,18634],"class_list":["post-62082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snippets-dow-jones","tag-ibm","tag-nvda","tag-mmm","tag-dji","tag-hd","tag-stock-market","tag-may-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}