NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes snapped back on Thursday, lifted by a chip-fueled surge after TSMC’s blockbuster results, while investors combed through earnings from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to close the book on big banks’ reporting season.
Chip stocks such as Nvidia rose 2.5 percent, while Broadcom and Micron gained 2.3 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
Chipmaking tool companies Applied Materials and KLA gained over 8.5 percent each, while Lam Research rose 6.3 percent.
The world’s main producer of advanced AI chips, TSMC , predicted robust annual growth and flagged more US manufacturing capacity was in the works. US-listed shares of TSMC jumped 7 percent.
The broader info-tech sector rose 1.5 percent.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, gained 4.7 percent after a rally in markets lifted fee income and pushed its assets under management to a record USD14.04 trillion in the fourth quarter.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both reported a rise in quarterly profit, helped by a flurry of dealmaking. Goldman’s shares rose 3.3 percent, while Morgan Stanley gained 4.8 percent.
“Stocks are reacting positively and it’s because the selling pressure has already lowered the price of these recently, and it’s attracted some investors back,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth.
“All the earnings from the banks were pretty much as expected.”
Financial stocks have been on the back foot this week as investors fretted over a proposed one-year cap that would limit credit-card interest rates to 10 percent. The concern has dragged the broader financial sector toward its worst week since October, even as some industry heavyweights turned in stout profit growth.
At 11:22 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 371.37 points, or 0.75 percent, to 49,521.00, the S&P 500 gained 46.44 points, or 0.67 percent, to 6,973.04 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 215.97 points, or 0.92 percent, to 23,688.42.
Investors look to fundamentals as the earnings season kicks off, testing whether the rally still has legs.
Wall Street’s heavyweights - tech and growth stocks - have lost some shine recently as investors kick off the year by chasing bargains.
Jason Bottenfield, a wealth manager at Steward Partners, said it is a pattern that often emerges at the start of the year.
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