Nick DeGray and Associated Press
CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) – Stocks climbed Thursday and technology shares outperformed, adding to the previous session’s gains that led to new records on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 310 points, or .8 percent. 22News invited Mark Teed, the Senior Vice President of Investments for Teed Capital Management of Raymond James in Springfield to talk about this increase.
You can watch the discussion with Mark Teed in the video player above.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks extended their push to record heights on Wall Street Thursday, led by big gains for chipmakers.
The S&P 500 was 0.5% higher in afternoon trading and on track to set an all-time high for a third straight day. Roughly 75% of stocks in the index gained ground.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 317 points, or 0.8% as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher. Both indexes are also adding to records set a day earlier.
Micron surged 15.2% and led chipmakers higher after reporting much stronger results for its latest quarter than expected. It also gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that topped analysts’ estimates, as it benefits from a rush into artificial intelligence.
Chipmaker Broadcom jumped 7% and was an even stronger force pushing the S&P 500 upward. It held an investor presentation a day earlier on its opportunities in AI. A general frenzy around AI technology on Wall Street has sent some stocks to dizzying heights.
Reddit climbed 35.9% in its debut as a publicly traded stock. The eclectic bazaar of online communities offered its stock at an initial price of $34 a share.
They helped to more than offset a 4.3% slump for Apple after the Justice Department announced a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker. It accuses the tech giant of engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones that boxes out competitors and stifles innovation.
Accenture was another weight on the market after dropping 8.8%. The consulting and professional services company reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. But its forecast for profit over this full fiscal year fell short of estimates.
Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants fell 6.7% after its revenue forecast for the full fiscal year came up shy of anlaysts’.
Treasury yields were mostly steady a day after the Federal Reserve said it still expects to make three rate cuts this year. That helped calm some worries on Wall Street that it would pull some cuts off the table following some hotter-than-expected inflation reports.
Lower interest rates would relax pressure on the economy and the financial system. Wall Street expects the Fed to start cutting rates at its meeting in June.
Some reports Thursday morning suggested the U.S. economy is doing better than expected, even in the fact of high rates. Fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, another signal of a remarkably resilient job market.
A measure of manufacturing activity in the mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly grew, while a preliminary look at manufacturing nationwide was also better than expected.
Wall Street will get its next big inflation update next week when the U.S. reports personal consumption and expenditures data for February. It is the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation. Overall, inflation has eased by several measures since spiking in the middle of 2022, though progress stalled in the first two months of this year.
Markets in Europe and Asia mostly gained ground.
The Chinese government announced fresh measures to support its economy.
The Swiss National Bank said it is trimming its key interest rate, a surprise move that makes Switzerland the first major financial center to announce a cut in recent months. The Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged at a 16-year high and avoided signaling when it might start to cut even though inflation has dropped sharply.
