- Meta rises after reports of more layoffs
- Fidelity National collapses over payments spin-off
- Technology-related heavyweights are driving S&P 500 gains
- Indices Rally: S&P 500 +1.15%, Nasdaq +1.48%, Dow +1.11%
February 13 (Portal) – Wall Street closed sharply higher on Monday as investors awaited inflation data likely to point the way for future Federal Reserve rate hikes, while Meta Platforms rose on a report that Facebook’s parent company was making new ones plan layoffs.
Meta (META.O) rose about 3% after the Financial Times reported on Sunday that the company was preparing to announce a new round of job cuts, adding to last November’s layoffs.
Microsoft (MSFT.O) is up more than 3%, Nvidia (NVDA.O) is up 2.5%, and Apple (AAPL.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) are each up over 1%. Along with Meta, these technology-related heavyweights contributed more than any other stock to S&P 500 gains during a low-volume trading session.
Stifel helped Microsoft rise, raising its price target for the software company and saying it’s clearly looking to reverse Alphabet’s Google search dominance through its integration with ChatGPT.
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Investors are focusing on January’s inflation data, due Tuesday, to re-evaluate their bets on the central bank’s monetary policy stance.
Wall Street’s main indices lost ground last week after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned interest rates may have to rise higher than expected as the central bank fights inflation.
“Today is just a natural reaction in the opposite direction after we saw some very strong selling pressure,” said Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments in Atlanta.
Ten of the S&P 500’s 11 sector indices rose 1.77%, led by information technology (.SPLRCT), followed by a 1.46% gain in consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD). The energy index (.SPNY) fell 0.6%.
The S&P 500 rose 1.15% to end the session at 4,137.32 points.
The Nasdaq gained 1.48% to 11,891.79 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.11% to 34,246.13 points.
However, volume on US exchanges was relatively light at 9.5 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 11.9 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
So far this year, the S&P 500 is up about 8%, and the index remains about 14% below its record high from the close in January 2022.
Fidelity National Information Services Inc (FIS.N) plunged 12.5% after the banking and payments processing conglomerate decided to spin off its merchant payments business.
Coca-Cola (KO.N) rose 1.6% ahead of its earnings report, which is due early Tuesday.
As quarterly U.S. earnings reports wind down, 69% of S&P 500 companies that have reported results so far have beaten earnings expectations, according to Refinitiv data. Analysts expect earnings to have fallen nearly 3% year-on-year in the December quarter.
In the US stock market (.AD.US), rising stocks outweighed falling ones by a ratio of 2.5:1.
The S&P 500 posted four new highs and no new lows; The Nasdaq recorded 80 new highs and 59 new lows.
reporting by Johann M. Cherian in Bengaluru; Edited by Maju Samuel, Sriraj Kalluvila, Shinjini Ganguli and Deepa Babington
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