By Caroline Valetkevitch
(Reuters) - The S&P 500 hit a 7-month intraday high on Monday as investors digested comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who painted a mostly upbeat picture of the economy but gave little sense of when a rate hike may be coming.
Gains in oil and energy shares also boosted the market. The S&P energy index <.SPNY> was up 1.9 percent.
Yellen's remarks, likely her last public comments before a policy meeting next week, follow Friday's dismal monthly jobs report, which raised concerns over the ability of the economy to absorb a rate hike as early as June.
"I think she's still committed to rate hikes, but she is emphasizing there's not a timetable. She didn't say 'in the next few months,' which is dovish," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.
At 3:06 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 131.35 points, or 0.74 percent, to 17,938.41, the S&P 500 <.SPX> had gained 12.55 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,111.68 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> had added 32.74 points, or 0.66 percent, to 4,975.25.
Yellen also called the jobs report "disappointing," but said "one should not attach too much significance to a single report."
AbbVie
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,163 to 877, for a 2.47-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 2,092 issues rose and 751 fell for a 2.79-to-1 ratio favouring advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 39 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the Nasdaq recorded 87 new highs and 24 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Nick Zieminski)
