July 15 (Reuters) - The Dow hit a record high in Wall Street's upbeat trading on Monday, on a greater chance of presidential candidate Donald Trump winning a second term after surviving an assassination attempt, while interest-rate cut hopes also aided sentiment.
Under Trump, markets expect a hawkish trade policy and looser regulations over issues from climate change to cryptocurrency.
Online betting site PredictIt showed bets of an election win for Trump at 66 cents, up from Friday's 60 cents, with a victory for Joe Biden at 26 cents.
"In a Republican administration, you'll see a lower tax policy, lower regulatory policy... that's typically good for stocks. We're seeing some of that in terms of forward looking expectations from investors at this point," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.
Trump-linked stocks soared, with Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT.O), software firm Phunware (PHUN.O), and video-sharing platform Rumble (RUM.O), jumping between 6% and 32%.
Crypto stocks also leapt as bitcoin rose to a two-week high. Coinbase Global (COIN.O), Marathon Digital holdings (MARA.O), and Riot Platforms (RIOT.O), advanced between 5.3% and 8.2%.
Other stocks that are expected to benefit from Trump's second term also climbed, with Gunmaker Smith & Wesson (SWBI.O), and prison operator GEO Group (GEO.N), gaining 12.6% and 9.4%, respectively.
The Dow hit a record high, boosted by a 2% gain in UnitedHealth (UNH.N), as health insurers also jumped on a likely Trump win.
The small-cap Russell 2000 (.RUT), gained 1.2% to its highest since January 2022, in continued evidence of broad-based market gains.
Investors priced in an 88% odd of a 25-basis-point rate cut by September and two cuts for 2024, according to LSEG data, even though the Fed's last set of economic projections had indicated only one rate cut this year.
Rate cut hopes aided Friday's strong rally, which saw the Dow and S&P 500 touch intraday record highs after cooler-than-expected inflation data, and the Russell 2000 notch its best week since November.
Comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, expected later on Monday, will be parsed for clues on their assessment of last week's inflation data.
At 9:49 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), was up 201.52 points, or 0.50%, at 40,202.42, the S&P 500 (.SPX), was up 23.67 points, or 0.42%, at 5,639.02, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), was up 93.90 points, or 0.51%, at 18,492.34.
As the quarterly corporate earnings season ramps up this week, it remains to be seen if megacaps can justify their high valuations.
Among megacaps, Apple (AAPL.O), advanced 1.8% to all-time high after Morgan Stanley added it to its "top pick" list, while Tesla (TSLA.O), jumped 4.8%.
Leading sectoral gainers was the S&P 500 tech index (.SPLRCT). Financials index (.SPSY), also rose 0.8%, with Goldman Sachs (GS.N), hitting a record-high after second-quarter profit more than doubled.
Macy's shares (M.N), slumped 15.3% after the company terminated buyout discussions with Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.42-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.59-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 31 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 96 new highs and 15 new lows
Reporting by Lisa Mattackal and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Shinjini Ganguli
