NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Wednesday, with high-growth stocks gaining as a recent rally in Treasury yields paused, while investors took comfort from upbeat earnings reports and signs of easing tensions in Ukraine.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield slipped from multi-year highs hit in the previous session, helping steady sentiment across global markets.
Megacap names such as Meta Platforms Inc, Google-owner Alphabet Inc, Tesla Inc and Microsoft were up between 1.2% and 2.5%.
All of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors advanced, with consumer discretionary, technology and real estate stocks leading the gains.
“It’s a little bit of a buy-the-dip mentality on the growth side,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago.
“We’ll probably know for sure by Friday whether this is just an oversold bounce or if January was more of an aberration and we’ll see more of a rally through the rest of the first quarter.”
Growth and technology names have been among the worst hit this year on rate hike fears that prompted investors to move away from companies with rich valuations. The Nasdaq fell nearly 9% in January and is up marginally so far this month.
Investors are awaiting consumer prices data on Thursday for clues on the Federal Reserve’s plans to hike interest rates after an unexpectedly strong jobs report last week raised concerns of a more aggressive move by the central bank. Inflation is forecast at a four-decade high of 7.3%.
At 09:50 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 288.81 points, or 0.81%, at 35,751.59, the S&P 500 was up 50.26 points, or 1.11%, at 4,571.80, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 161.99 points, or 1.14%, at 14,356.44.
News about easing of tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine helped lift investor sentiment, along with upbeat earnings.
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc gained 7.4% after beating profit and sales estimates, while KFC-parent Yum Brands Inc added 3.8% after sales beat estimates.
Enphase Energy Inc jumped 12.3% on upbeat results, lifting other solar stocks like SunPower Corp and SolarEdge Technologies Inc up 2.1% and 4.9% respectively.
CVS Health Corp slipped 3.7% after its earnings forecast for 2022 fell short of Wall Street expectations and ride-hailing platform Lyft Inc fell 2.5% after providing a downbeat outlook for the current quarter.
Walt Disney Co, Uber Technologies Inc and Barbie-maker Mattel Inc are some companies reporting quarterly results later in the day.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 5.15-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 3.12-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 35 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 35 new highs and 22 new lows.
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