Stocks rallied to records Tuesday after some influential Big Tech companies got back in their groove.
- The S&P 500 rose 57.33 points, or 1.1%, to 5,175.27 to top its all-time high set last week.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 235.83 points, or 0.6%, to 39,005.49.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 246.36 points, or 1.5%, to 16,265.64 %.
All three indexes started the day with losses after a highly anticipated report showed
inflation was worse than expected. But the inflation figures weren't far off expectations, and traders still hope the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates in June.
"January and February are notoriously noisy months for a lot of economic data," says Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. "The Fed wasn't planning on cutting rates next week, and this report doesn't change that. The discussion around the table will be more about the longer-term trend." The fear is "sticky" inflation that refuses to go down will force the Fed to keep interest rates high, which grinds down on the economy and investment prices.
On Wall Street, Big Tech stocks were doing the heaviest lifting, the AP reports. Oracle jumped 11.8% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Nvidia also rallied 7.2% following a rare two-day stumble in what's been a rocket ride amid Wall Street's frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. The company's stock has grown into one of the market's most influential because of its sudden swelling in size, and it was the single strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward. Industrial giant 3M climbed 5% after it said Bill Brown, the former chairman and CEO of L3Harris Technologies, will take over as its CEO at the start of May.
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New York Community Bancorp rose 5.9% after it said it closed its previously announced deal to raise roughly $1.05 billion in cash from the sale of stock. On the losing end of Wall Street was Southwest Airlines. It dropped 14.9% after cutting its forecast for an important measure of revenue in the first three months of this year, partially because of lower-than-expected flying by some leisure travelers. It also said Boeing told the company that it will deliver fewer airplanes than expected this year. Shares of Boeing, which is facing criticism over its safety and manufacturing quality, sank 4.3%. (More stock market stories.)
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