Tech, health care help rally markets

Investors shrugged off geopolitical jitters Monday, sending U.S. stocks broadly higher and extending the market’s gains from last week.

Technology companies, health care stocks and industrial firms accounted for much of the rally as traders focused on the latest company earnings and deal news. Oil prices fell after surging last week ahead of the U.S.-led missile attack on Syria’s chemical weapons program.

The S&P 500 index rose 21.54 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,677.84. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 212.90 points, or 0.9 percent, to 24,573.04. The Nasdaq added 49.63 points, or 0.7 percent, to 7,156.28. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 13.52 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,563.03.

The market was in rally mode from the start of trading Monday, despite a sell-off among major indexes in Europe.

Investors seemed to put aside concerns over the geopolitical tensions that led to Friday night’s missile attack by the U.S., Britain and France on Syria’s chemical weapons program.

T-Mobile will pay for faked calls

The Federal Communications Commission announced a $40 million settlement with T-Mobile US over accusations the carrier made it seem that outgoing calls were ringing at their destination when they weren’t.

T-Mobile admitted that it violated a prohibition against inserting false ringing sounds, and that it didn’t correct problems, the FCC said Monday in an emailed news release. T-Mobile reported that it had injected the false ringing sounds on hundreds of millions of calls, the FCC said.

T-Mobile, of Bellevue, Washington, said in an emailed statement that “the ringtone oversight, which was corrected in January 2017, was unintentional.”

Call-completion problems appeared to be occurring mostly in rural areas served by closely held regional telephone companies, which charge the long-distance carriers such as T-Mobile more than companies in urban and suburban areas, according to the FCC.

With the false ringing sounds, the calling party believes the phone is ringing at the called party’s premises when it is not. As a result, the caller may hang up, thinking nobody is available to receive the call, thus saving T-Mobile fees it would have to pay the local carrier.

Calls that aren’t completed cause rural businesses to lose revenue, impede medical professionals from reaching patients in rural areas, cut families off from their relatives, and create the potential for dangerous delays in public safety communications, the FCC said.

—From wire reports