Thing but a combination of factors. Housing data was strong. Oil prices went up. New highs for the year. And there seems to be an increase in confidence that higher Interest Rates likely wont hurt stock prices very much, if at all. The Dow Jones Industrial average climbed 213 points to close at 17,706. Nasdaq added 95. And the s p 500 rose 28. Ari thompson has more on todays big gain. Reporter stocks finished strong on the back of a big gain in aprils new home sales and the back of strength in the european markets. The u. S. Markets rallying from the opening bell. This after a new poll showed that britons are less likely to vote to leave the eu in a brexit. New home sales for the month of april rose to their highest levels in eight years. That data along with the news that prices for new homes were very high levels and the news that the luxury home builder Toll Brothers came in with stronger than expected earnings adding fuel to the markets rally. Pacing the gains today, strength in health care. In finance and tech stocks, especially semiconductors. These sectors though among the poorestperforming sectors of the year. This led some traders to point out this could be a Short Covering rally or when investors expect these stocks would fall, reverse their wages. Impressive in its allday staying Power Traders remain cautious about todays rally if large part because they say the markets continue to face a number of head winds including the potential for higher Interest Rates and price evaluations. At the snoernlgs, im Mary Thompson for nightly Business Report. As mary mentioned those strong new home sales put investors in a buying mood. The Commerce Department said new home sales climbed more than 16. 5 in april to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000 units, an eightyear high. Prices hit a record. Diana olick has more on whats shaping up to be a very Strong Spring market. Reporter there just arent enough homes for sale. Thats one reason builders are seeing big demand. Supplies of existing homes are falling nationwide and especially in major cities. Inventories down double digits in seattle, atlanta, portland, charlotte, dallas, and kansas city just to make a few. New listings are down as well as potential sellers are afraid they wont be able to find anything to buy. We got in the Housing Market because of the supertight inventories creating demand and massive job growth. This is a great setup for a slow and steady recovery. Reporter slow but not so steady. Sales of newly built homes jumps nearly 17 in april after falling in the months before. But its not just that headline turning heads. Its the price. The median price of a newly built home soared nearly 10 to 321,100. The highest reading on record. The last peak was in 2006. Not only is demand pushing home prices higher, builders are basically absent from the starter home market because most of the action is on the pricier end, which in turn skews that median number higher. That was clear in a big Quarterly Earnings beat by luxury builder Toll Brothers raising expectations for 2016 sales and seeing its already pricey price head even higher to well over 800,000. The issue of the millennials or people of that age and deferral in marriage and waiting to buy. Then when they buy theyre much older and therefore not a starter ho buyer anymore. Reporter it bodes well for builders but not so much for buyers. As prices will likely continue to heat up right along with the mercury this summer. To read more about housing head to our website nbr. Com. Of course most of those people who bought new homes had to take out mortgages to get them. That was one of the reasons why Household Debt, which also includes auto and student loans, rose in the First Quarter of the year. But unlike the period of time leading up to the financial crisis, increased borrowing may not be such a bad thing this time around. Steve liesman explains. Reporter total Household Debt climbing a slim 1. 1 in the First Quarter to 12. 25 trillion, the seventh straight quarterly rise, the biggest increase in mortgage debt since the Great Recession according to the report from the new York Federal Reserve bank. There are increases in auto and student loans, but declines in credit card and home equity debt. So is Consumer Debt a problem . Are we in the middle of a Consumer Debt bubble . Hardly. Total debt remains more than 400 billion below the peak of 2008. Per capita debt continues to decline since the population is to improve. New foreclosures and bankruptcies fell. Newly delinquent loans rose by the least since 2005, up 138 billion. In the teeth of a recession delinquent debt surged by more than 400 billion a quarter. Delinquencies are down because banks continue to lend to those americans with just the best credit. Before the recession, people with the best Credit Scores got 24 of all mortgages and the worst got 13 . In part because of subprime lending. Now the best credits get nearly 60 of all new mortgages. The second tier has fallen in half and theres virtually no mortgage money for americans with the lowest Credit Scores. The races questions whether banks are too sheepish in their lending or regulations are too tough. Some problem areas remain. Total auto and student loan debts remain above 1 trillion. The percent of loans that are 90days plus delinquent rose for autos but fell for mortgages, credit cards and student loans. Its not a worrisome picture of consumerism debt, not suggesting were in the later innings of a credit or economic cycle. Jack mcintyre joins to us talk more about Household Debt, the consumer, and the economy. Hes the fixed Income Portfolio manager at brandy wine global. Listening to Steve Liesmans report it appears were doing better in managing our debt as consumers. Why is that, and why are consumers doing a better jonathan before the financial . You know, i think theres a couple of things. Steve pointed out, i think first of all, i think lending standards have been ratcheted up since the Global Financial crisis. So its a little more difficult to take on debt. But i think more importantly the debt is in the hands of the consumer that is in a better position to be able to service and pay back that debt. And the other part which i think is certainly as important, that debt, its mortgage debt. Its going into housing. Housing is an asset that should appreciate over time. So there will be some wealth created along with that. So i think the takeaway, its gradual increase in debt and that its not borrowing and people that are just overextended, the people that already have pretty good balance sheets. So loans being made to better borrowers. Lets talk a little bit about what effect rising Interest Rates might have on those borrowers. Is it going to pinch them in any sort of meaningful way . I dont think in the end, initial phase. Im in the camp i think if the fed is in a position to slowly, i think its important to go slow in terms of tightening policy, that thats associated with the u. S. Economy thats doing better and as part of that economy doing better wages should start to move higher. So its a little bit of a battle between a consumer that has better income versus, maybe i have to pay a little bit more for that mortgage or credit card or whatever type of debt it might be. So what point should we be concerned about the level of Household Debt . When did debt become bad . Debt becomes bad when the u. S. Economy teeters on a recession. Were not there yet. Again, i think we have had a kind of cultural shift in terms of how consumers think about debt. I think i just dont see the days that we are borrowing to consume anywhere like we were ten years ago. I think consumptions going to be more a function of income, of wages, which means that we should have a little bit less economic volatility. But no, if the fed makes a policy mistake, u. S. Dollar rallies sharply, the u. S. Economy slows down to a recession, obviously debt, its not going to be your friend in that kind of environment. Right now seems like were on a good track. So hope that continues. Jack mcintyre with brandy wine global investments, thank you. The president of the philadelphia Federal Reserve is echoing recent comments of other fed officials. Patrick harker said the central bank should raise Interest Rates at the next policy meeting in june. That is unless theres a shift in the Economic Data between now and then. He added that he can easily see two to three more Interest Rate hikes this year. An update to a potential merger that weve been reporting on. Monsanto has rejected behrs 62 billion offer, calling it financially inadequate. Monsantos ceo said the initial offer failed to address financing and regulatory risks. However, the Worlds Largest food company is open to continuing talks. Behr says its looking forward to gaining in constructive discussion. Shares of monsanto climbed more than 3 . The deal news hewlettpackard will spin off its Enterprise Services business and merge it with Computer Sciences corporation. The combination creates a company with 26 billion in annual revenue, expected to deliver 8. 5 billion to Hp Enterprise shareholders. Separately, hewlettpackard enterprises which is itself a spinoff of hewlettpackard reported earnings in line with wall street estimates. Shares of hpe rose sharply in afterhour trading on news of the deal. Shares of Computer Sciences also spiked as you see there. Still ahead, a highstakes trial in Silicon Valley that has the entire Tech Industry on ed oracle and google, two of the worlds biggest tech companies, are battling it out in court and the outcome could extend far beyond these two companies. Deer ra bosa at the courthouse in San Francisco tells us whats at stake. Reporter two tech titans, 9 billion. And a decision that could send shock waves across the industry. The stakes are high in the oracle versus google lawsuit that rests with a jury. Oracle claims that google violated its copyright when it used java programming to create android, now the most popular operating system in the world. Google contends it was fair use of that code. But the case goes beyond the two companies. At its heart is open source, a pillar of the Software Industry that a Huge Community of developers and startups rely on. And they may not be able to defend themselves as google can if oracle wins. If indeed the fair use defense is not set to hold here and the jury does find googles liable, companies and Software Programmers are going to have to sure that they secure the rights, not just go along assuming that no ones going to call them to the carpet and when theres time for infringement. Reporter this trial has been dragging on for nearly six years. As lawyers made their closing statements the rhetoric became increasingly heated. Oracles lawyer told the jury, you dont take peoples property without permission and use it for your own benefit. Google took a shortcut, and they took a shortcut at oracles expense. Meanwhile, googles attorney told jurors that oracle is accusing google of unfair copying because it failed in its own attempts to enter the smartphone market. He said they now want all the credit and a whole lot of money. That is not fair. Now that is up for the ten jurors to decide and it needs to be unanimous. Until then the Tech Industry remains on edge. Dierdre bosa for nightly Business Report in San Francisco. Meanwhile, googles former Ceo Eric Schmidt spoke about googles legal fight with oracle at a major conference in europe designed to help startups grow faster. He made the comments to our Julia Chatterly who interviewed a number of other wellknown business leaders. She has more now from amsterdam. Reporter im in amsterdam for the 2016 startup fest europe. This is effectively speed dating between european startups in the tech sector and potential investors. There are a whole host of speakers today. Tim cook of apple kicked off the proceedings. He spent a great deal of time talking about recent privacy issues. We think if you send a message, were more like the fed ex carrier, right . We take the message sealed and bring it over. And so thats our point of view and its not a new point of view. Its a point of view that weve had and weve constantly added more and more security. And i realize that some people have a different view. But i hope the people that do at least understand where were reporter i got the chance to speak to the alphabet changer rick schmidt. We talked about todays court case between oracle and the company and he says if the ruling goes in oracles favor theres only one loser. Were part of the open source movement. So i think it really hurts oracle. Because they own java and they need to promote it into this new world. And it just doesnt make sense to me that theyre in that path. Reporter i couldnt let eric leave without talking about u. S. Politics. Its Common Knowledge hes backing a startup thats looking at Data Analytics for hillary, the same for president obama. I picked up on Donald Trumps recent comments that data is overrated. I asked eric for his views. Let us start by saying with donald trump that his candidacy has largely been fueled by twitter. Last time of which i checked was a tech company that used a lot of data. Reporter the speed dating here in amsterdam is going to continue for the week throughout the country. It may be the first event of its kind. But the hope here is if you can attract talent like tim cook and eric schmidt, it wont be the last. For nightly Business Report, im Julia Chatterly. A fastgrowing Silicon Valley startup could soon be valued at more than 20 billion. Snapchat, the popular messaging app, is seeking at least 200 million in Investment Capital and thats according to tech crunch. That number implies that whopper of a valuation. Three years ago facebook offered to buy snapchat for 4 billion. The company has about 100 million daily users. Best buy warns of a profit slowdown. And thats where we begin tonights market focus. The Electronics Retailer posted better than expected Quarterly Results but sees profit falling below expectations after an earthquake in japan impacted the supply of its highmargin products. Best buy also said its chief Financial Officer is stepping. Shares fell more than 7 to 30. 55. Verizon is warning of ongoing labor strike may negati impact its secondquarter results. The Telecom Giant says while it has been able to manage maintenance requests it has not been able to meet new customer demands. Nearly 40,000 employees have been striking since april 13th. Shares finished the day up almost 1 to 49. 58. Pharmaceutical do eli lilly says it has the potential to launch 14 new drugs by 2023. In areas like diabetes and oncology. The companys ceo thinks lily is well positioned over the next deca finally able to take the science and turn it into products and demographics are in our favor. Twothirds of the medicine that you take in your lifetime youre going to take after the age of 65. So people are going to need the products that come out of our labs. I think thats a great sort of lineup to have as we look 10 or 20 years into the future. Shares rose a little over 1 to 74. 99. Under armour is upping its game signing whats believed to be the largest apparel deal in ncaa history. It is a 15year arrangement with ucla. Its worth 280 million. The new partnership begins in july 2017. Shares of under armour up more than 2 to 38. 22. Dominos pizza might owe some of its employees a lot of dough because of the new York Attorney general who is suing the nations largest pizza delivery chain and three of its franchisees, alleging employees at 10 new york locations were underpaid by more than 500,000. Investigation by the state found cot was knowingly using a Computer System for years that inaccurately calculated workers wages. Shares of dominos up fractionally at 122. 52. Auto zones latest results hit a speed bump. Profit rose nearly 6 at the Automotive Parts retailer ought stow zone but that wasnt good enough to beat estimates. Revenue also missed as the company cited a legal charge and bad weather in several of the regions of the country it serves. Nonetheless, shares of auto zone up nearly 2. 5 to 760. 42. The fastgrowing industry of competitive video gaming just took a big step forward. This friday youll be able to watch other pe