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Record closing highs for S&P 500, Nasdaq

Economic stimulus talks are back on in Washington and that helped propel the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record closing highs.

The Dow which gained 185 points on Tuesday is less than 1 percent away from the record peak set last month. The S&P 500 jumped 40 points. The Nasdaq surged 156.

DataTrek Research's Nick Colas:

"We're finally hearing Washington get serious about stimulus and perhaps by the end of the year. That's critically important because we're facing a big fiscal cliff with people not getting any kind of renewal on everything from their unemployment insurance, unemployment benefits to other benefits at the end of this year. We need a stimulus plan now. Market likes the fact that we're hearing about that."

Investors also cheered the latest vaccine news. Pfizer and its German partner BioNtech have asked for emergency European approval for their COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer shares touched their highest in over a year.

Wall Street had another big deal to digest. Cloud software provider Salesforce has offered to buy workplace messaging app Slack in a near $28 billion cash-and-stock deal. Salesforce is looking to take on rival Microsoft, which has its own messaging app called Teams. Shares of Salesforce were down nearly 2 percent. Slack rallied more than 2 percent to its highest since going public last year.

It was a tough day for video conferencing app Zoom. The stock tumbled 15 percent after the company issued a disappointing outlook for next year.