Qualcomm rose after the chipmaker said it is raising its quarterly dividend by 40 percent to 35 cents a share from 25 cents a share and announced a $5 billion stock buyback program.
Google climbed to hit another all-time high after Jefferies boosted its price target on the search-engine giant to $1000 from $875 with a "buy" rating.
Netflix gained after RBC initiated coverage of the movie-streaming website with an "outperform" rating and a price target of $210.
(Read More: Big Changes in in Tech Since Last Dow Record)
JCPenney slumped to lead the S&P 500 laggards amid news Vornado Realty Trust is selling 10 million of the retailer's shares via Deutsche Bank, sources told CNBC. Vornado currently has an approximately 8.5 percent stake in the retailer, or about 18.6 million shares.
The Senate Budget Committee is expected meet to discuss reducing the fiscal deficit by eliminating wasteful spending in the tax code.
House Speaker John Boehner said President Barack Obama and he had made no headway on a deal to avoid sequestration over the weekend. Meanwhile, House Republicans are expected to introduce a bill to extend government funding through September, to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
While stocks so far have largely ignored sequester concerns, analysts say signs the cuts are beginning to impact the economy could eventually move markets.
Stephen King, chief global economist at HSBC, said that the U.S. was living in a fantasy world" over the impact sequestration would have on growth.
"If you look at the projections from the Congressional Budget Office, they assume that growth goes back to between four to five percent in real terms between 2014 and 2018. Their numbers suggest that the U.S. will post the fastest rate of productivity growth of any decade in the last 50 or 60 years," King told CNBC Europe. "Even allowing for the fact that there's some debt reduction, coming through sequestration, there's still a degree of wishful thinking with regard to the economy which probably isn't going to come true." (CNBC Explains: What Is Sequestration?)
VeriFone is scheduled to report fourth quarter earnings after the closing bell.