Stocks surged Wednesday, led by a rally in shares of major technology companies that pushed the Nasdaq Composite above 20,000 points for the first time.
The Nasdaq rose 1.8% to finish Wednesday’s session at 20,035, while the S&P 500 added 0.8% to close just shy of a new high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.2% lower after giving back earlier gains. U.S. stocks were coming off of two straight days of losses as the market took a breather from a post-election rally that has sent major indexes to a series of record highs.
Large-cap technology stocks were mostly higher on Wednesday, led by Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL) and EV maker Tesla (TSLA) , which jumped 5.5% and 5.9%, respectively. AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) gained 3.1%, while Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Meta (META) also finished solidly higher. Apple (AAPL) hit an all-time high Wednesday but ended the session 0.5% lower.
Among other big movers, Broadcom (AVGO) rose 6.6% following reports that Apple has teamed with the chipmaker to develop its own AI chips. GE Vernova (GEV) rose 5% after the energy equipment maker boosted its long-term revenue outlook, declared a dividend and announced a stock-buyback plan.
The U.S. stock market got an early boost Wednesday after the Consumer Price Index report showed that 12-month inflation was 2.7% in November, up from 2.6% the month before but in line with economists’ expectations. The reading, while indicating that inflation remains sticky, reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will likely cut its benchmark fed funds rate at its policy meeting a week from today.
Market participants are now pricing in a 99% chance of a quarter-point rate cut next week, compared with the 86% likelihood that was being priced in before the inflation report was released, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, which calculates probabilities of rate adjustments based on fed fund futures trading data.
The yield on 10-year Treasurys, which is sensitive to expectations about where interest rates are headed, finished little changed at around 4.28%.
Bitcoin was trading at $101,600 up from overnight lows around $96,000. The digital currency has gained about 40% since the election amid hopes that the Trump administration will adopt policies that benefit the crypto market.
Gold futures gained more than 1% to around $2,750 an ounce, while crude oil futures rose about 2%.
Source: investopedia.com