US stock indices rose amid a rise in the stocks of major technology companies

Stocks rose in New York on Thursday on strong tech earnings, as traders shrugged off data showing that US gross domestic product numbers rose much less than expected in the first quarter.

The benchmark S&P 500 rose 1.3 percent, its biggest rise in two weeks, with Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet contributing the biggest gains.

Meta was the best performer, however, rising 15 percent after reporting stronger-than-expected first-quarter results and touting its AI investments. The Nasdaq Composite Heavy Index rose 1.9 percent.

US government bonds came under pressure after news that US gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 1.1 percent in the first quarter of the year, down from a 2.6 percent increase in the last three months of 2022. A rise of nearly 2 percent. However, the employment index remained resilient, with new applicants for unemployment benefits falling in the United States in the week ending April 22nd.

“There is something to grab for both bulls and bears in today’s data release,” said Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo, portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The two-year policy-sensitive yield extended an earlier move, up 0.14 percentage point at 4.06 percent. The 10-year yield, seen as a proxy for global borrowing costs, rose 0.08 percentage point to 3.5 percent. Bond yields rise as their prices fall. The dollar’s measure against six other currencies added 0.1 percent.

Economic growth is slowing but “hasn’t collapsed yet,” said Andrew Hunter, deputy chief US economist at Capital Economics, and expects higher interest rates and tightening credit conditions triggered by the March bank panic to eventually push the US into a “mild recession.” .

The S&P 500 is down 0.1 percent over the past month, after surging in March even as three medium-sized banks failed. “I think we’ve been looking at the downside for some time,” said Mike Zygmunt, head of trading at Harvest Volatility Management.

“It’s not necessarily because the market is bad or the world is bad etc. It’s simply because the optimism from mid-March came out of nowhere and wasn’t substantiated by news or events. It was a speculative bullish where the speculation stalled.

European stocks rose slightly as investors waded into a raft of first-quarter corporate earnings. The region-wide Stoxx 600 rose 0.2 percent, the FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent, and France’s Cac 40 rose 0.2 percent.

Shares of consumer goods giant Unilever rose 1.3 percent after it reported record first-quarter revenue of 14.8 billion euros, while shares in Deutsche Bank jumped 2.8 percent after the German bank said profits hit their highest level in a decade. in the first quarter.

Asian stocks rose, with China’s CSI 300 index up 0.7 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index up 0.4 percent.

Additional reporting by Harriet Clarevelt in New York