new york jan 3 reuters  the sp 500 spx and dow jones industrial average dji posted closing record highs on the first trading day of the year on monday helped by gains in tesla inc tslaoand bank shares apple inc aaplo became the first company to hit a 3 trillion market capitalization but ended the day slightly below that its shares ended up 25 at 18201 after rising as high as 18288 during the session read more teslas shares jumped 135 after the electric car makers quarterly deliveries beat analysts estimates riding out global chip shortages as it ramped up production in china read more the two stocks gave the biggest boosts to the sp 500 but market watchers said easing investor worries about the economic impact of the omicron variant of the coronavirus also helped market sentiment even with rising covid19 case numbers the real news is people feel like this latest round of covid is not going to be economically debilitating in that a lot of restrictions and lockdowns are going to be required said stephen massocca senior vice president at wedbush securities in san francisco among the latest developments the us food and drug administration authorized a third dose of pfizer inc pfen and biontechs covid19 vaccine for children aged 12 to 15 read more thousands of us schools have delayed this weeks scheduled return to classrooms following the holiday break or switched to remote learning as the omicron variant drives record levels of covid19 read more massocca said market strength is not surprising as a new year starts given the january effect or belief by some investors that stocks will rise that month more than in other months it bodes well to see the market so resilient he said all of wall streets main indexes ended 2021 with monthly quarterly and annual gains recording their biggest threeyear advance since 1999 the dow jones industrial average dji rose 24676 points or 068 to 3658506 the sp 500 spx gained 3038 points or 064 at 479656 and the nasdaq composite ixic added 18783 points or 12 at 1583280 energy and financial sectors were among top gainers with bank shares rising along with us treasury yields as investors braced for what could be an earlierthanexpected interest rate hike by the federal reserve this year despite the recent jump in covid19 cases energy shares climbed with crude oil prices and upbeat prospects for demand read more wells fargos shares advanced 57 also helped by their upgrade to overweight by barclays the benchmark sp 500 added 27 in 2021 and reported 70 recordhigh closes its the secondmost ever in a tumultuous year hit by new covid19 variants and supply chain shortages the dow added 187 for the year and the techheavy nasdaq gained 214 advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the nyse by a 134to1 ratio on nasdaq a 227to1 ratio favored advancers the sp 500 posted 20 new 52week highs and no new lows the nasdaq composite recorded 89 new highs and 55 new lows volume on us exchanges was 1000 billion shares compared with the 1036 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days additional reporting by bansari mayur kamdar shashank nayar and medha singh in bengaluru editing by maju samuel and richard chang