S&P 500, Nasdaq close at record high

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq finished at record highs Monday as investors continued to respond positively to a speech last week from Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell.

The Dow faltered 55 points due to weak financial shares. But The S&P rose 19. The Nasdaq jumped 136.

It was all about the Fed chief's acknowledgment on Friday that the economic recovery was strong, but not strong enough to immediately force policymakers to start rolling back their massive bond-buying program.

And there was something else the market likes, says Carin Pai, head of portfolio management at Fiduciary Trust.

"I think it was important that the Fed stress that tapering doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to raise interest rates. I think that they were very clear and stress that raising interest rates is a separate decision. And so just because, you know, they may be talking about when to taper, it doesn't necessarily follow with raising interest rates."

Tech stocks took the lead as investors bet names like Apple and Google's Alphabet will see their business continue to flourish as low interest rates fuel the economy. Shares of Apple rallied more than 3 percent.

Amazon is joining in on the buy now, pay later craze. It is partnering with Affirm Holdings to allow certain customers to split the total cost of purchases of $50 or more into monthly payments. Amazon shares rose more than 2 percent. Affirm soared nearly 47 percent - logging its best one day performance ever.

But Chinese stocks were slammed once again. This time Chinese regulators slashed the amount of time pLayers under the age of 18 can spend on online games to an hour on Friday, on weekends and on holidays. U.S. listed shares of Chinese gaming firm NetEase fell more than 3 percent.