Stocks rose amid a rebound in megacap companies and speculation that the U.S. economy remains resilient in the face of higher interest rates.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 outperformed major benchmarks, with Tesla climbing after a slide of more than 6%.
Nvidia, whose products have become the most popular for data centers needed to power generative artificial intelligence, halted a four-day sell-off.
Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms gained afters Citigroup lifted its price target for the shares. The S&P 500 snapped a back-to-back drop.
The U.S. stock market made a pivotal shift this month, exiting a phase typically associated with the worst return prospects and powering into a stage that’s tied to a more favorable outlook over the coming year.
A Bloomberg Intelligence model known as the Market Regime Index – which clusters periods into three phases dubbed accelerated growth (green), moderate growth (yellow) and decline (red) – has flipped out of the cautious red zone that it’s been stuck in for 15 straight months and into yellow.
That signals brighter times ahead for stocks, per BI’st Gina Martin Adams and Gillian Wolff.
“Growth has held up well thus far,” said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer at BlueBay Asset Management. “With central banks nearing the end of their rate hiking cycles, this has fed hopes of a relatively soft landing in economic terms, without a more severe recession.”
Home prices in the U.S. rose for a third straight month, pushed up by growing buyer demand for a tight supply of listings, according to seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller.
Orders placed with U.S. factories for business equipment rose, indicating companies continue to make longer-term investments despite high borrowing costs and economic uncertainty.
