The Dow dipped a tenth of a percent, but the S&P jumped nearly one-and-a-half percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq soared three-and-a-quarter percent.
George Ball, Chairman of Sanders Morris Harris, says tech stocks are seeing a bounce on the hopes that interest rates won't be going much higher.
"The Dow Jones averages are actually down - so big, old American stocks down because the economy looks fine, but not great. The Nasdaq, the tech, the companies that need to borrow at low interest rates, are booming up because Chairman Powell said, 'We think things are going to be alright.' It doesn't look like there are going to be rate increases beyond those that are already priced into the market and those are modest."
The biggest winner Thursday among those tech stocks: Facebook parent Meta Platforms, which soared more than 23% a day after the company revealed stricter cost controls for 2023 and a $40 billion share buyback.
Shares of megacaps Apple, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet also gained strongly ahead of results that came after the market close.
But in initial after-hours trading, shares of all three companies fell after their respective results.
