Equities traders aren’t quite ready to sell in May.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed to a record as U.S. stocks eked out a weekly gain after a weaker dollar boosted shares of multinational companies and a selloff in global bond markets eased.

Halfway through a month that has been the second-worst historically, the S&P 500 has advanced 1.8 percent. Equities rose for a second week after selling that erased $400 billion from fixed-income markets subsided. The dollar’s fifth weekly retreat boosted shares of the biggest American companies on speculation its drop makes their products more competitive, while mixed economic data added to speculation the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates near zero.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.3 percent to 2,122.73 in the five days, surpassing its April 24 record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 81.45 points, or 0.5 percent, to 18,272.56. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped 1.2 percent to extend the longest weekly slide since October 2013.

David Fuller's view

Wall Street is far from the best performer this year but the DJIA (weekly & daily), S&P 500 (weekly & daily) and Nasdaq Composite (weekly & daily), are currently steady within their uptrends, despite numerous draconian forecasts. 

Monetary policy remains the big, ongoing bullish factor, even though Janet Yellen’s Fed hopes it will have justification to commence lifting rates before yearend.