Tech surge propels S&P 500, Nasdaq to all-time highs; Powell comments in focus

By Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal

(Reuters) -Wall Street's main indexes climbed on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq touching record highs driven by gains in technology stocks, while investors awaited comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later in the day.

Crucial jobs data is due on Friday and investors are shoring up bets on a third consecutive interest-rate cut at the central bank's Dec. 17-18 meeting.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM ) provided the biggest boost to the blue-chip Dow on the day, jumping 8.8% to an all-time high after the enterprise cloud company beat Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and raised the lower end of its annual revenue forecast.

Other cloud companies also jumped, with ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW ) and Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG ) adding 5.6% each.

Information Technology stocks hit a record high, buoyed by gains in megacaps such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT ) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA ).

Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL ) Technology advanced 21.6% to a record high after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue above analyst estimates, while the broader Semiconductor index rose 1.6%.

"Numbers from technology (Salesforce and Marvell) once again were pretty amazing and it just seems that we can continue to grow and hit these earnings. These numbers continue to give the tech rally legs," said JJ Kinahan, CEO at IG Group North America.

U.S. private payrolls showed a modest increase in November, while annual wages for workers staying in their jobs edged higher for the first time in 25 months.

Separately, a survey from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. services sector activity slowed in November after logging big gains in recent months, while the final reading of the S&P services survey was revised lower to 56.1.

At 11:31 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 235.16 points, or 0.53%, to 44,940.69, the S&P 500 gained 22.58 points, or 0.37%, to 6,072.46, and the Nasdaq Composite added 171.83 points, or 0.88%, to 19,652.74.

The CBOE Market Volatility Index, Wall Street's fear gauge, briefly dipped below 13 points for the first time since July.

The Fed's Beige Book, the central bank's U.S. economic activity survey report, is scheduled for release at 2:00 p.m. ET.

St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem spoke on the day, joining other Fed officials this week in signaling support for further rate cuts, but none pushed strongly for or against another reduction.

U.S. stocks had a solid November after President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the Nov. 5 election and his Republican Party sweeping both houses of Congress.

Drugmaker Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY ) was up nearly 3% after its weight-loss drug Zepbound topped rival Wegovy in a head-to-head study.



Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.2-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 1.36-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 23 new 52-week highs and five new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 115 new highs and 74 new lows.

Source: Investing.com