Shares of technology companies rose after strong earnings from bellwether Apple.
Shares of the world's largest company by market capitalization rose by more than 7% after strong back-to-school sales of Macs offset slimmer-than-anticipated iPhone sales.
Tech companies were also lifted by hopes that the Federal Reserve would use next week's meeting to hint at a shift in rate policy plans. "The tech bloodbath is over and Wall Street still seems to be confident that the Fed is ready to downshift their tightening pace after they deliver a fourth consecutive 75-basis-point rate hike next week," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at foreign-exchange brokerage OANDA Group, in a note to clients.
Amazon.com shares fell sharply after the online retail giant forecast holiday sales shy of Wall Street targets, and said growth at its cloud storage unit was slowing. The cloud business was long a prized growth engine for both Amazon and Microsoft, and was particularly in vogue during the pandemic. In their third quarter reports, both tech giants indicated that cloud demand may have peaked.
Specialized cloud computing firms Snowflake and MongoDB fell sharply. Meta Platforms shares rose slightly, but remained at multiyear lows amid concerns about the implications of its strategic shift away from the for revenue prospects.
"'The metaverse ... where stocks go to die,'" was one way to characterize the Wall Street reaction to the earnings report, said analysts at brokerage Bank of America Global Research, in a note to clients.
Write to Rob Curran at rob.curran@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-28-22 1721ET
