As the market awaits the FOMC decision on Wednesday, the US stocks are cheering on the prospects for a cut, and visions of other cuts between now and year-end.

The gains today were led by the NASDAQ index which closed at another record. The S&P index was also higher and it too closed at a record.

• Tesla shares closed higher by 3.62%
• Alphabet cracked 3 trillion market capitalization, rising 4.53% in the process. It now joins Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia with a market capitalization of over $3 trillion
• Nvidia shares closed flat despite China saying they did not comply with anti-monopoly law

A snapshot of the closing levels shows:

• Dow industrial average rose 49.23 points or 0.11% at 45883.45.
• S&P index rose 30.99 points or 0.47% at 6615.28
• NASDAQ index rose 207.65 points or 0.94% at 22348.75

The small-cap Russell 2000 advance by 8.069 points or 0.34% at 2405.13.

Looking at the S&P components, telecommunication services led the advances with a gain of 2.34%. Consumer Staples and healthcare were the lacquers with declines of over 1%. Overall, 5 components rose while 6 fell.

• Telecommunication Services +2.34%

• Consumer Discretionary +1.09%

• Information Technology +0.82%

• Industrials +0.45%

• Utilities +0.15%

• Energy -0.30%

• Financials -0.22%

• Materials -0.82%

• Real Estate -0.32%

• Health Care -1.01%

• Consumer Staples -1.16%