US stocks rose on Thursday after the worst sell-off in months on Wall Street, as investors reset their timeline for interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and braced for a strong round of huge technology profits.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose 0.6%. The Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC), which suffered a more than 2% decline on Wednesday, traded nearly 1% higher.
The financial world is moving fast and furious this week, but the Federal Reserve remained the focus of attention Thursday morning. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, while cementing a pivot in the central bank's interest rate plans, gave investors looking for quick rate cuts a wake-up call. He hinted that he viewed the bank as unlikely to start cutting interest rates at the Fed's next meeting in March, something that was largely viewed as frustration earlier this week.
In fact, according to the CME FedWatch tool, investors were calculating about a two-thirds chance of holding again at the March meeting, while almost all bets are on a small — or larger — cut in May.
Meanwhile, members of the “Magnificent Seven” will take center stage after the closing bell, as Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) are scheduled to report earnings. Tuesday's first batch of Big Tech results from Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) failed to meet investors' lofty expectations, helping those stocks slide.
And we shouldn't forget that the economic world has another narrative-fueling data point waiting for it this week. Investors will get a quick glimpse into the January labor market with Friday's non-farm payrolls report.
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