S&P 500 gains for an 8th day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup's strong earnings helped the S&P 500 end higher on Monday for an eighth straight day, the longest such streak since mid-January, though weak retail sales limited gains in a session with the lowest volume of the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 finished at record closing highs for the third consecutive session. The Nasdaq scored its highest close since September 2000.

Volume was the lightest of any full trading day this year, with just 4.91 billion shares trading on exchanges, based on the latest available data. This year, daily volume has averaged 6.4 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT.