S&P 500 Continues Advance as Falling Yields Boost Big Tech Ahead of Earnings

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The S&P 500 rallied as weakness in Treasury yields helped tech stocks ahead of quarterly results from Microsoft and Alphabet later on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.3% or 274 points, and the Nasdaq was rose 1.9%.

Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) led the rally in big tech rising more than 5% following by a more than 1% gain in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL).

Microsoft and Google will kick off a busy week for big tech earnings after the closing bell, with demand for Microsoft’s cloud segment Azure and the impact of slowing advertising spend respectively, expected to be closely watched.  

Earnings from big tech will “either expose the negative underlying fundamentals across the tech space and cause massive earnings cuts into 2023…or prove that the bearishness and the demise of growth tech was premature,” Wedbush said in a note.

Falling Treasury yields also helped boost sentiment on big tech as data pointing to a weaker than expected consumer stoked further investor bets for less hawkish Federal Reserve rate hikes.

The consumer confidence index fell to 102.5 in October from a downwardly revised 107.8 in September. Economists were forecasting a reading of 106.5. 

Signs of a weaker consumer didn’t dent optimism about retailers as Bath&Body Works (NYSE:BBWI), Ross Stores (NASDAQ:ROST), and CarMax (NYSE:KMX) led consumer stocks higher.

General Motors (NYSE:GM), meanwhile, jumped more than 3% after the automaker reported third-quarter results that topped analysts’ estimates and maintained its full-year outlook at a time when many are worried about weaker demand.

General Electric (NYSE:GE) fell 1% after mixed quarterly results as revenue beat estimates but earnings fell short of estimates. United Parcel Service Inc (NYSE:UPS) also reported mixed third-quarter results, driven by weakness in its supply chain solutions business.

JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) also reported weaker-than-expected earnings even as travel demand paved the way to hike fares offsetting rising input costs somewhat.

In other news, Elon Musk reportedly told bankers financing the debt portion of his $44 billion Twitter deal that he plans to wrap up the transaction by Friday, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.