Techs lead way as Wall St rebounds from sell-off

By Dave Shellock

US stocks staged a solid rebound after the previous day’s savage sell-off, as forecast-beating earnings reports from the likes of Microsoft, Ford and Twitter provided a more encouraging backdrop.
The main equity indices on Wall Street recouped much of Wednesday’s losses, which had wiped out all the gains made by the S&P 500 in 2018 and left the Nasdaq Composite nursing its biggest one-day fall for seven years.
Yet the underlying mood remained cautious as recent uncertainty about corporate earnings growth — given the Trump administration’s protectionist policies, the strong dollar and the prospect of further rate rises from the Federal Reserve — kept market participants unsettled.
“So far, the US earnings season has been decent, with approximately 30 per cent of the S&P 500 companies by market capitalisation having reported and 83 per cent of those having beaten analysts’ expectations,” said Kerry Craig at JPMorgan Asset Management.
“The anxiety now in markets stems from whether this is the peak in earnings and growth, as higher input costs from rising wages, the impact of tariffs and higher funding costs start to impinge on corporate margins.” The focus on earnings will continue after the close of trade with results from Alphabet, Intel and Amazon.
In New York, the S&P 500 ended 1.9 per cent higher at 2,705, after rising as high as 2,722.70, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 3 per cent. The two barometers fell 3.1 per cent and 4.4 per cent, respectively, on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.6 per cent on Thursday.