The markets were higher today as the energy and financial sector were the outperformers. The Dow 30 gained 126 points thanks to Caterpillar (CAT  ). The S&P 500 was one of the main focus indices as it has now come within 1% of all time highs. The Nasdaq 100 was also positive on the day with a gain of 23, just about a half a percent from all time highs.

Earnings season and a reduction in Washington drama continue to be the driving force behind investors' appetite for risk. Strong fundamental performance from over 80% of the S&P 500 has helped investors justify these higher prices.

Stock News:

By far the most focused on stock of the day was Tesla (TSLA  ) as the stock was halted after a tweet from CEO Elon Musk showed that he wanted to take the company private. Initially, given the enormous cost of this transaction, many felt that he had been hacked. The company did reveal that he did in fact tweet this, and his follow up tweets confirmed this as well.

Short traders we're blasted on this news as the stock shot up almost 20 points immediately before the halt. Musk says he wants to take the company private at $420 a share which would normally mean he would need about $70 billion to buy out all the shares plus the $12 billion or so in debt that the company has. The interesting part about this is that he wants shareholders to remain shareholders on a secondary, private market which would mean he would only need to assume the $12 billion in debt along with any operating funds needed to proceed. The Saudi's recently took a $2-3 billion stake in Tesla which has many feeling that they will be the ones to help support the transaction.

Disney (DIS  ) was higher by almost 1% higher today as the company gets ready to report earnings. Shares have blasted off in recent weeks with almost a 12% gain since the start of July. Earnings are due out after the close today.