By Sin\u00e9ad Carew and Purvi Agarwal <\/p>\n
Oct 21 (Reuters) – The tech-heavy Nasdaq led Wall Street to a higher close on Wednesday after quarterly results from SpaceX and Super Micro Computer improved investor appetite for artificial intelligence-related stocks while weakness in communication services stocks capped gains. <\/p>\n
SpaceX \u200cshares finished up 7.8% after Elon Musk’s rocket and space technology firm posted its first profit as a public company. Musk said, following the \u200creport, that a merger of SpaceX and Tesla would be “a good idea,” also boosting Tesla shares. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere in earnings, Super Micro shares jumped 9.6% and it was among the S&P 500’s top gainers \u200bafter the AI server maker forecast quarterly revenue and profit margin above Wall Street estimates, signaling that AI demand remained resilient. The report also benefited peers HPE, which rose 3.7%, and Dell, which rose 5.3%. <\/p>\n
The reports provided some reassurance to investors who have been worried about the sustainability of massive spending on AI buildouts and their profitability. The technology sector was hammered last week by a selloff in AI-linked stocks, with data center operator CoreWeave at the center of the storm. <\/p>\n
The SpaceX news “pushes back \u200con some of the investor worries” about AI along \u2060with some help from Super Micro, according to Angelo Kourkafas, senior global strategist at Edward Jones. <\/p>\n
Kourkafas said the reports will not “answer all the questions investors have on returns on AI investments, but it’s a good start.” <\/p>\n
As a result, the S&P 500 Information \u2060Technology index finished up 1.6%, the biggest gainer among the S&P 500’s 11 major industry sectors. <\/p>\n
“It’s really a positive technology story for almost anyone that is somewhat involved in the artificial intelligence ecosystem,” said Marc Dizard, chief investment officer at Huntington Bank. <\/p>\n
“The technology market reaction has been a reaffirmation that the artificial intelligence trade is still intact,” he \u200badded. <\/p>\n
However, \u200bDizard said sentiment can quickly shift around AI and that investors will seek reaffirmation when \u200bthey monitor earnings reports from other companies. <\/p>\n
Shares in Meta rose 3% in \u200clate trading after it released its quarterly results following the regular session’s close. After finishing up 3.4% in the regular session, Tesla shares rose another 1.6% following its report, which was also issued after the close. <\/p>\n
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 360.21 points, or 0.69%, to 52,856.09, the S&P 500 gained 44.60 points, or 0.58%, to 7,757.17 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 278.04 points, or 1.05%, to 26,702.86. <\/p>\n
Within technology, one of the strongest areas was chips with a 2% rally in the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, which has had a volatile month so far including an eight-session selloff. <\/p>\n
Gains in the benchmark S&P 500 were limited however by a 1.3% \u200cdecline in communication services stocks. The biggest losers included telecom operators such as AT&T, which \u200bsank 6.5% even as it beat third-quarter revenue and profit expectations. <\/p>\n
The SpaceX results, along with \u200ba recent wireless spectrum purchase, fanned fears that it could become a \u200bformidable competitor in telecoms, according to Dizard. T-Mobile US shares fell 2.5% and Verizon Communications lost 2.2%. <\/p>\n
Also in communications services, Netflix \u200cshares sank 5.3% after the video streaming company issued a weaker-than-expected \u200bforecast for its fourth-quarter profit. Google’s parent Alphabet \u200balso declined 1.6%. <\/p>\n
Abbott Laboratories shares dropped 1.9% after the medical device maker cut its 2026 sales growth forecast. <\/p>\n
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.37-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 131 new highs and 221 new lows. On the Nasdaq, 2,690 stocks rose and 2,068 fell as advancing issues \u200boutnumbered decliners by a 1.3-to-1 ratio. <\/p>\n
The S&P 500 posted 26 \u200cnew 52-week highs and 3 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 53 new highs and 216 new lows. <\/p>\n
On US exchanges roughly 16.11 \u200bbillion shares changed hands compared with the 17.10 billion average for the last 20 sessions. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York, Purvi \u200bAgarwal and Tharuniyaa Lakshmi in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and David Gregorio) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sin\u00e9ad Carew and Purvi Agarwal Oct 21 (Reuters) – The tech-heavy Nasdaq led Wall Street to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15261,45,161,49,48,46,133,1828,1829,74172,1830,1831,39783,8123,131,2519,968,1705,2511,1832,1833,176,74173,3322,74174],"class_list":["post-941365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-401k","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}