Another S&P record, and a big one

The Standard & Poor's 500 index delivered its fourth record high in five days Friday, ending with the biggest monthly gain since February.

The milestone-crushing run capped a week when the S&P eclipsed the 2,000-point mark for the first time. And the index ended August with a gain of 3.7 percent.

Six months of solid job gains, strong company earnings, and a bevy of corporate deal news contributed to the rally, part of a bull market that's been rumbling on for more than five years.

Even in a quiet day of trading ahead of the Labor Day holiday - U.S. markets are closed Monday - stocks eked out a gain.

The S&P 500 index finished up 6.63 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,003.37. It closed above 2,000 for the first time on Tuesday and has gained 8.4 percent this year. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 18.88 points, or 0.11 percent, to 17,098.45 on Friday, while the Nasdaq composite added 22.58 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,580.27.

Stocks rose broadly, with all 10 sectors in the S&P 500 index higher for the day. The gains marked the index's best August since 2000. Bond prices were little changed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note held at 2.34 percent. In metals trading, gold slipped $3 to $1,287.40 an ounce, silver fell 14 cents to $19.40 an ounce, and copper rose a penny to $3.14 a pound. The price of oil rose for the fourth day in a row on concerns about the escalating tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the biggest non-OPEC oil exporter.