Wall Street today: Nasdaq climbs 2.4%, S&P 500 gains 1.4% on strong results from Meta Platforms, Microsoft

US stock indices jumped on Thursday, lifted by shares of tech giants Meta Platforms and Microsoft after their strong first quarter results.

At 11:38 AMEDT, the S&P 500 was up 1.42%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.95%, the Nasdaq Composite was 2.40% higher.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 248.7 points, or 0.61%, to 40,918.04. The S&P 500 rose 56.1 points, or 1.01%, to 5,625.14, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 346.8 points, or 1.99%, to 17,793.136.

Shares of Microsoft soared nearly 10% while Facebook parent Meta Platforms surged 5.1% after both the companies reported strong quarterly results on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the US stocks initially tumbled after a weak GDP data for the first quarter fueled recession worries, but later rebounded following solid US consumer spending data and benign inflation.

As lot of uncertainty still remains about whether President Donald Trump’s trade war will force the economy into a recession, market participants are looking ahead to non-farm payrolls data for April to be released on Friday.

It will be the first major economic report to include the period after Trump's sweeping April 2 tariff announcement.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.19%, up from 4.17% late on Wednesday.

Gainers and Losers

Among other megacap stocks, Nvidia gained 3.8% and Amazon added 2%.

Apple shares lost 1% after a judge said the iPhone maker had violated a US court order to reform its App Store.

McDonald’s stock fell 1.3% after the burger chain reported weaker revenue for the first quarter than expected.

Shares of General Motors rose 1.2% after the automaker offered a new forecast for 2025 core profit.

Bullion

Gold prices edged lower on Thursday, pressured by sigs of softening trade tensions.

Spot gold fell 2.2% at $3,216.41 an ounce at 10:25 AM ET (1425 GMT).

US gold futures were down 2.8% at $3,226.90.

Spot silver fell 1.3% to $32.15, platinum lost 1.2% to $954.85, and palladium gained 0.4% to $941.14.

Crude oil

Oil prices rebounded on Thursday as US equity markets strengthened.

Brent crude futures gained 71 cents or 1.2% to $61.77. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 47 cents or 0.8% to $58.68 a barrel by 1442 GMT.