While Asia was celebrating the Lunar New Year holidays, traders on Wall Street were celebrating a sharp four-day US stock market rally, fueled by rebounding tech stocks. The Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ US, +0.81%) is up 8% since last Thur. The “Triple Qs” track the Nasdaq-100 Index, and are often used as a benchmark for US tech shares.
Leading the charge on Wed were Alphabet (GOOGL US, +7.52%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD US, +5.12%) which both soared on strong results. On the other hand, PayPal (PYPL US, -24.59%) was an extraordinary loser, after providing weak guidance.
On Wed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 224.09 pts or 0.63% higher to close at 35,629.33. The S&P 500 index rose 0.94%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.5%. The small cap Russell 2000 dropped 1.03%.
A fifth straight day of gains does not look to be in the cards. After the close, the company formerly known as Facebook, Meta Platforms (FB US, +1.25%), and Spotify (SPOT US, -5.75%) reported results that displeased analysts. In extended-hours trade Meta has shed 23% and Spotify is down 11%.
In early trade this morning (Thur), futures tied to the Nasdaq 100 dropped 2.3%, and S&P 500 futures slid 1%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 35 points, or 0.1%.
On Wed, the 10-year Treasury note yield slipped 1.24 basis points (bps) to 1.7751%.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Apr) contracts settled up $8.80, or 0.5%, at US$1,810.30/oz. March silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, rose 11.2 cents, or 0.5%, to end at US$22.707/oz.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.47% to 95.936. The biggest weight in the DXY is the euro, which rose 0.3% to US$1.1307, after the release of data showing Eurozone inflation was higher than expected. The European Central Bank (ECB) is meeting today, and policymakers will be under pressure to act curb inflation.
WTI crude futures held near a fresh seven-year high as OPEC+ agreed to another only modest hike in output. The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed up 31 cents at US$89.47/bbl and 6 cents at US$88.26/bbl respectively.
European equity markets finished mixed on Wed. The UK FTSE gained 0.63%, France's CAC 40 rose 0.22%, while the German DAX retreated 0.04%.