Broad rally lifts Wall St. to record as BoJ bumps up stimulus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow industrials hit a record high on Friday as stocks rallied on Wall Street after the Bank of Japan significantly ramped up its stimulus program, just days after the Federal Reserve wound down its years-long package of incentives.

The S&P 500 came within 0.1 percent of its record high, after the December e-minis contract hit an intraday record earlier.

Gains were broad, with 123 new 52-week highs on the S&P 500 versus just two new lows. The Nasdaq Composite recorded 209 new highs and 27 new lows.

The BoJ's board voted 5-4 to accelerate purchases of Japanese government bonds while tripling its purchases of exchange-traded funds and real-estate investment trusts.

At the same time, Japan's $1.2 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund announced new allocations for its portfolio, raising its holdings of domestic and foreign stock holdings to 25 percent each from 12 percent.

"It's not just the (BoJ) easing but the asset allocation from the pension plan is of course also helpful," said Paul Zemsky, chief investment officer of multi-asset strategies and solutions at Voya Investment Management in New York.

"Economic growth (in the United States) is looking pretty good, earnings are good. ... We will end the year certainly closer to 2,100 than 2,000 on the S&P 500," he added.

The quarterly earnings season has been strong so far, with 75.8 percent of S&P 500 components reporting earnings above analyst expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data, above the 63 percent average in the past 20 years.

At 11:59 a.m. (1559 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 166.08 points, or 0.97 percent, to 17,361.5, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 19.49 points, or 0.98 percent, to 2,014.14, and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 55.47 points, or 1.21 percent, to 4,621.61.

The U.S. dollar <.DXY> rallied as well, pressuring crude oil prices and spot gold , which dropped 2.6 percent, the most for any day this year. A strong dollar makes commodities such as oil more expensive for buyers using other currencies

"If you're holding gold as a hedge against inflation, how long can you stay there? It's been a losing trade for a while now," Zemsky said.

U.S. consumer spending fell for the first time in eight months in September, but the slowdown is likely to be temporary, as other data showed wages in the third quarter recorded their largest increase in more than six years.

Abbvie shares rose 4 percent to $63.62 after the drugmaker reported quarterly earnings and said it could deliver strong long-term growth without rushing into another big merger attempt.

GoPro shares jumped 12.6 percent to $76.82 the day after it forecast better-than-expected holiday quarter sales.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,117 to 852, for a 2.48-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,815 issues rose and 803 fell for a 2.26-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)

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