S&P 500 gains exceed 1% in mid-session

Stocks on the New York Stock Exchange rallied during the trading session on Friday, following strong quarterly results from tech giants Alphabet and Microsoft and moderate inflation data. Investors reacted positively to Alphabet’s first-ever announced dividend, $70 billion share buyback program and first-quarter results that beat expectations. The company’s shares rose 10.4% to a record high, pushing the market value of Google’s parent company to more than $2 trillion.

The Dow Jones rose 226.04 points, or 0.59%, to 38,313.61 at 2:16 p.m. local time. The S&P 500 gained 59.87 points, or 1.19%, to 5,108.29 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 325.84 points, or 2.09%, to 15,937.60.

Microsoft gained 2.7% as third-quarter revenue and profit beat Wall Street forecasts. This increase was attributed to the company’s gains from the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in cloud services.

Other megacap growth stocks were also on the rise; Amazon and Nvidia gained 3.5% and 5.8%, respectively. However, Meta, Apple and Tesla fell. Meta’s results on Wednesday disappointed investors and the company increased its spending on AI.

Eight of the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors rose, led primarily by communications services, technology, consumer choices and materials sectors.

According to US Department of Commerce data, while there was a moderate inflation increase on an annual basis in March, it was in line with expectations on a monthly basis. This report provided relief to financial markets frightened by concerns about rising inflation and slowing economic growth.

Following the data, money markets priced more strongly the possibility of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in September. The 10-year Treasury bond yield fell after the data and was last at 4.6692%.

Snap shares skyrocketed nearly 28% as the social media company’s first-quarter revenue and user growth beat estimates. Pinterest shares also rose 4.1%.

America’s largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, missed analyst forecasts, with first-quarter profits falling 28% from last year and shares losing 2.2%. Intel fell 9.9% as it missed second-quarter revenue and profit forecasts due to lower demand for its traditional data center and PC chips.