NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes advanced on Friday as most megacap growth stocks rose after robust quarterly results from Alphabet pushed its market value over $2 trillion, while an in-line inflation reading calmed interest rate jitters.
Alphabet jumped 10.1% to a record high after the Google-parent announced its first-ever dividend, a $70 billion stock buyback and beat estimates for first-quarter results.
The share surge led to the search giant’s market value briefly topping $2 trillion on an intraday basis.
Lifting sentiment further, Microsoft rose 2.5% on beating Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and profit, driven by gains from AI adoption across its cloud services.
Other growth stocks also traded higher on the results, with Amazon.com and Nvidia up 2.9% and 5.0%, respectively.
Aiding further gains, US monthly inflation rose moderately in March on an annual basis while coming in line with estimates on a monthly basis.
The report from the Commerce Department, which also showed strong consumer spending last month, offered some relief to financial markets spooked by worries of stagflation after data on Thursday showed inflation surging and economic growth slowing in the first quarter.
“The PCE came in line with expectations. So there’s been some excitement about that. But the inflation data for the week hasn’t been all that fabulous,” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist for Murphy & Sylvest.
“It’s still mixed, but markets are trading off of the earnings numbers.”
Money markets priced in a firmer chance of a rate cut in September after the data.
Yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell after the data, last standing at 4.6671%.
The upbeat earnings across several sectors this week have propped up Wall Street’s main stock indexes for weekly gains, with the benchmark S&P 500 looking to snap three weeks of losses, while the Nasdaq is set to end four straight weeks of declines.
Adjusted blended earnings for the first quarter are estimated to grow by 8.7% on a year-on-year basis versus 7.4% growth seen on Thursday, according to LSEG data.
At 11:35 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 89.62 points, or 0.24%, at 38,175.42, the S&P 500 was up 48.44 points, or 0.96%, at 5,096.86, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 302.40 points, or 1.94%, at 15,914.16.
Five of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were trading higher, with communication services jumping 4.1%, while energy led losses with a 1.7% fall.
Snap surged 26.4% after the social media firm beat first-quarter estimates for revenue and user growth. Shares of Pinterest also rose 3.8%.
Exxon Mobil lost 3.6% after the largest US oil company missed analysts’ estimates with a 28% year-on-year drop in first-quarter profit.
Intel dropped 9.9% on forecasting second-quarter revenue and profit below estimates as it faces weak demand for its traditional data center and PC chips and trails in the surging market for AI components.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.33-to-1 ratio on the NYSE by a 1.78-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 16 new 52-week highs and eight new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 30 new highs and 57 new lows.
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