Tech rally drives S&P 500, Nasdaq to record highs; Powell comments in focus

By Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes climbed on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq touching record highs propelled by gains in technology stocks, while investors awaited comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later in the day.

U.S. private payrolls increased at a moderate pace in November, the ADP National Employment Report showed, with private payrolls rising by 146,000 jobs after advancing by a downwardly revised 184,000 in October.

“There’s been a lot of noise for job figures due to distortions in the economy and the correlation between the ADP and the nonfarm payrolls print, which is the really important one for the outlook and for Fed policy,” said Zachary Hill, head of portfolio management at Horizon Investments.

“I don’t really think the markets are going be focusing on today’s ADP report.”

The data comes before the highly anticipated November monthly employment report, due on Friday.

Separately, data from the Institute for Supply Management showed non-manufacturing activity stood at 52.1 last month, while the final reading of the S&P services survey was revised lower to 56.1.

At 10:03 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 211.99 points, or 0.47%, to 44,917.52, the S&P 500 gained 16.50 points, or 0.27%, to 6,066.38 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 132.66 points, or 0.68%, to 19,613.57.

The CBOE Market Volatility Index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, briefly dipped below 13 points for the first time since July 2024.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) provided the biggest boost to the blue-chip Dow, jumping 8.5% after the enterprise cloud company beat Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and raised the lower end of its annual revenue forecast.

Information Technology stocks hit a record high, buoyed by gains in megacaps such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA).

Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL) Technology advanced 21.2% after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue above analyst estimates, while the broader Semiconductor index was up 1%.

Market focus stays on Powell’s comments, which are due later in the day, while the central bank’s Beige Book, its U.S. economic activity survey report, is scheduled for release at 2:00 p.m. ET.

St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem spoke on the day, joining other Fed officials this week in signaling support for further interest-rate cuts, but none pushed strongly for or against another reduction at the next Fed meeting in two weeks.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted record closing highs on Tuesday, as tech-related stocks continued to surge during the turbulent session.

U.S. stocks had a solid November after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the Nov. 5 election and his Republican Party sweeping both houses of Congress.

Dollar Tree (NASDAQ:DLTR) added 1.5% after the discount store operator beat third-quarter sales estimates, while drugmaker Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) was up 1.4% after its weight-loss drug Zepbound topped rival Wegovy in a head-to-head study.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.05-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 1.3-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52-week highs and four new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 83 new highs and 49 new lows.