NEW YORK :U.S. stocks followed their European counterparts higher and gold touched an all-time high on Thursday investors parsed an array of mixed quarterly earnings and digested a series of robust economic reports.
Gold hit a record high as the safe-haven metal benefited from looming election uncertainties.
Technology shares, particularly chips provided much of the upside muscle after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, beat earnings estimates and forecast a jump in fourth-quarter revenue, helping to ease fears of softening demand in the sector.
“By far the biggest contributor to today’s rally is TSMC’s upward guidance, and that the much-telegraphed semiconductor slowdown associated with potential oversaturation of AI is not emerging, at least in their order books,” said Michael Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management in Philadelphia.
“So that leadership from the semiconductor space, when it hits the largest cap companies, is going to push the headline indices higher,” Green said. “That, and the response to retail sales data,” has added support to U.S. stocks, Green added.
All three major U.S. stock indexes advanced and the dollar built on recent gains after a report from the Commerce Department showed stronger-than-expected retail sales, and the Labor Department’s initial jobless claims data landed below economists’ estimates.
The Dow was on track to notch another all-time closing high.
Growth shares were outperforming value, while regional banks were ahead of the pack in the wake of upbeat earnings from M&T Bank, KeyCorp and others.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 152.46 points, or 0.35 per cent, to 43,229.15, the S&P 500 rose 4.07 points, or 0.07 per cent, to 5,846.34 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 32.63 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 18,399.71.
European shares rallied, closing within 1 per cent of record high levels after the European Central Bank (ECB) implemented a broadly expected 25-basis-point rate cut, while offering scant clues
