wall street closed sharply higher on Thursday, after a strong quarterly report from Meta Platforms buoyed growth and tech stocks, offsetting concerns about the US economy contracting in the first quarter.
Goalthe matrix of Facebookrose after the social network reported a larger-than-expected profit and recovered from a drop in users.
Communication services and technology were among the strongest of the 11 S&P 500 sector indices, climbing 4.04% and 3.89%, respectively.
Apple Inc.the world’s most valuable company, and e-commerce giant Amazon Inc. they rose more than 4% ahead of the filing of their quarterly reports later on Thursday. But in after-hours trading, Amazon shares slumped about 10% after reporting lower-than-expected sales for the current quarter.
The S&P 500 gained 103.54 points, or 2.47%, to 4,287.50 units, while the nasdaq it rose 382.60 points, or 3.06%, to 12,871.53 units. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 614.46 points, or 1.85%, to 33,916.39 points.
Investors have been dumping high-growth stocks for weeks amid concerns about inflation, rising interest rates and a possible economic slowdown. Even with Thursday’s strong gain, the nasdaq it has lost almost 10% in April, on track for its deepest monthly drop since March 2020.
“When interest rates, the trajectory of the inflation and what the Fed is going to do are so volatile, it means valuing all other assets is much more difficult,” said Zach Hill, head of portfolio strategy at Horizon Investments.
“We’ve looked at a lot of earnings data over the last few days and weeks, and overall, outside of a few individual cases, the underlying fundamentals for corporate America have been relatively strong,” Hill added.
The US economy unexpectedly shrank in the first quarter as coronavirus cases rose again. Covid-19 and government aid funds decreased.
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