US stocks rose at the opening of trading on Thursday, following earnings by major technology companies that helped to ease fears about economic headwinds.
S&P 500 gained nearly 1%. Nasdaq Composite was up almost 2%. Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 233 points or 0.6%.
Meta Platforms’ better-than expected revenue in the first quarter has improved investor sentiment.
Meta’s first-quarter revenues topped analyst estimates of $41.40 Billion, according to LSEG Data.
Earnings per share were $6.43, which was higher than the expected $5.28.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook said that the company was “performing well” on its quarterly earnings call and “well-positioned to manage the macroeconomic uncertainties.”
Microsoft’s fiscal third-quarter results were also strong, as both its revenue and profits exceeded expectations.
Microsoft exceeded analyst estimates by reporting revenue of $70,07 billion for the third quarter and earnings per share of $3.46.
The forecasts called for a revenue of $68.42 Billion and earnings per share of $3.22.
The company’s Azure cloud division posted solid growth and issued positive guidance.
Microsoft’s shares rose by around 10% while Meta gained around 6%. Nvidia, and AI stocks in general also rose. Nvidia gained more than 4%.
The number of US unemployment claims has risen.
The number of initial jobless claims increased more than anticipated last week. This indicates that the US labour market may be under strain as economic indicators continue to deteriorate.
According to the Labor Department, the seasonally-adjusted initial claims for the week ending April 26 totaled 241,000. This is an increase of 18% from the previous week. It also exceeds the estimate by Dow Jones economists that the number would be 225,000.
The highest level since February 22,
The number of continuing claims has risen to 1,92 million. This is an increase of 83,000 over the week before and the highest since November 13th, 2021.
New York accounted for a significant part of the rise, with claims unadjusted more than doubling to 30 043. This report didn’t give a reason for this surge.
Last week, the District of Columbia saw a slight increase in its claims, despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut federal employees.
These data follow the GDP report released on Wednesday, which showed a contraction of 0.3% in annualized terms in the first three months. This is the first drop in over three years.
This drop is primarily due to a surge in imports before the new tariffs are implemented, along with softer spending by consumers and reduced expenditures from government.
This article Meta, Microsoft Q1 Results Drive US Stocks Higher: Nasdaq Surges 2%, S&P Up 1% first appeared on The ICD
