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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened higher on Monday, but the generic supportive factors of stimulus packages and falling Covid-19 cases were put in the shade by the news that Elon Musk’s Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) had converted $1.5 billion of its cash reserves into Bitcoin.
The move exposes the electric car maker to the fluctuations of an asset whose price is highly volatile and whose utility is still to be proven. However, it also gives the army of enthusiastic retail traders who have supported Tesla’s stock thus far another argument to push it even higher in the short term. Bitcoin prices surged some 13.5% to over $43,400 on the news, a new record high, while Tesla stock opened 2.2% higher.
By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 178 points, or 0.6%, at 31,326 points, a new all-time high. The S&P 500 was up 0.5% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 0.6%
