NEW YORK >> Wall Street closed its latest winning month and quarter with more records Monday. The drift higher for U.S. stocks followed a wild start to the week for financial markets in Asia, where Japanese stocks tumbled and Chinese indexes soared.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.4% to an all-time high and clinched its fifth straight winning month and fourth straight winning quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 17 points, or less than 0.1%, to its record set Friday. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.4%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 24.31 points to 5,762.48. The Dow added 17.15 to 42,330.15, and the Nasdaq gained 69.58 to 18,189.17.

Wall Street has catapulted to records on hopes the slowing U.S. economy can keep growing while the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to offer it more juice. A big test will arrive Friday, when the U.S. government offers its latest monthly update on the job market.

An overriding worry on Wall Street is whether the economy may already be heading for a recession. Even though the Fed cut rates earlier this month and has indicated more relief is on the way, U.S. employers have already begun paring back on their hiring. Before this month, the Fed had kept interest rates at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to stamp out high inflation.

“Payrolls remain the biggest catalyst” for the U.S. stock market until the election, strategists and economists at Bank of America wrote in a BofA Global Research report.

At Goldman Sachs, economist David Mericle said he’s expecting Friday’s report to show hiring in September was stronger than the 146,000 growth in payrolls that economists across Wall Street were broadly forecasting.

In the past, a stronger-than-expected number could have hurt the stock market by fanning worries about upward pressure on inflation. Now, though, it would likely be welcomed as a signal that a recession shouldn’t be as big a worry.

Interest rates and the strength of the economy are usually the two main levers that set prices for stocks. In Asia, the levers were pulling in opposite directions.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 slumped 4.8% on worries the country’s incoming prime minister will support higher interest rates and other policies that investors see as less market-friendly. Shigeru Ishiba is set to take over Tuesday.

Ishiba has expressed support for the Bank of Japan’s move to pull interest rates away from their near-zero level, which puts upward pressure on the value of the Japanese yen. A stronger yen can hurt profits for Japanese exporters, which make sales in other currencies and then convert them back into yen.

Toyota Motor’s stock fell 7.6% in Tokyo, while Honda Motor’s dropped 7%. Monday.

Stellantis, the company that owns the Jeep brand and others, tumbled 14.7% in Milan after cutting its forecast for upcoming profit. It cited investments to turn around its U.S. operations and increased Chinese competition.

That in turn helped drag down automakers Ford Motor and General Motors on Wall Street. Ford fell 2%, and GM dropped 3.5%.

A 2.3% rise for Apple helped offset such losses and was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 to its latest record. After weakening in late July with other Big Tech stocks amid worries their prices had shot too high, Apple’s stock has been climbing back toward its all-time closing high of $234.82. It finished Monday at $233.00.