Wall St hits six-year high

The New York Stock Exchange rang the bell on record high share prices this morning as a further plunge in global oil prices propelled the value of leading US companies to new peaks.

The Dow Jones industrial average hit an intra-day high of 11,759, just above the previous high-water mark set in January 2000 at the height of the technology bubble.

The Dow settled up 57 points at a new closing high of 11,727.

The high-tech Nasdaq composite index was up six points at 2,244 while the S&P500 index finished 2.79 points higher at 1,334.

"The chart of the market has been in a nice bull trend for the past two months and still shows no sign of pulling back," Bob Dickey, an analyst at RBC Dain Rauscher, said.

"As a rule, the market goes through an up-down-up cycle of bull and bear trends of varying periods, and since 2002, these have largely been 10 to 15 per cent rallies spaced between five to 10 per cent pullbacks."

But some analysts cautioned investors not to get too excited by the rises.

"While history in the making for the blue-chip index is important psychologically, it is worth noting that the Standard and Poor's 500, a much broader representation of the economy, is still 12 per cent below its best levels ever," analysts at Briefing.com said.

Crude oil was down more than $US2 a barrel, leading to hopes of improved consumer spending and better company profits, even though the US economy was slowing.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing was a significant beneficiary, up more than 2 per cent in value and leading retailer Wal-Mart was also up sharply.

Insurance stocks were well-supported as the threat recedes of a major hurricane hitting the US.

Across the Atlantic, sliding oil and mining company shares dragged the British market lower.

London's FT-100 index lost 21 points to 5,937.

Yesterday, the Australian share market recovered from early losses to close marginally ahead.

The All Ordinaries index inched up two points to 5,141.

In overnight trade on the Sydney Futures Exchange, the Share Price Index 200 contract closed down 31 points at 5,162.

The 10-year bond contract was down four points at 94.48, with the implied yield rising to 5.52 per cent.

The Australian dollar was trading at 74.34 US cents, down more than 0.4 cents on yesterday's local close, at 7:00am AEST.

On the cross-rates, it was at 0.5838 euros, 87.66 Japanese yen, 39.37 pence Sterling and 1.13 New Zealand dollars.

The gold price dropped sharply to $US574.50 an ounce - a fall of more than $US20 over the past 24 hours.

The spot price of West Texas crude oil fell $US2.32 to $US58.64 a barrel.