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Micron up on upbeat 2025 sales forecast
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Lululemon leaps on strong annual outlook
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Lucid Group rises on job cut plan
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Indexes up: Dow 0.75%, S&P 1.06%, Nasdaq 1.38%
(Updates prices to open; adds details, comments)
By Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas
March 29 (Reuters) - Wall Street indexes rose on
Wednesday as worries about stress in the banking sector eased,
while growing hopes that the Federal Reserve could pause
interest rate hikes lifted shares of tech and growth companies.
Market worries about the banking system have ebbed following
a U.S. regulator-backed sale of failed lender Silicon Valley
Bank's assets as well as lack of fresh signs of trouble in the
sector since the buyout deal.
"Markets have been hit by waves of bad news, and we have hit
a small pocket of stability with a few decent earnings and the
bank crisis seeming closer to being over," said Rick Meckler,
partner at Cherry Lane Investments.
Regional U.S. bank stocks including Truist Financial Corp , Western Alliance Bancorp and First Republic
Bank were up between 1.6% and 7.1%.
Larger peers Bank of America , Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Co rose between 0.1% and 1.1%.
The banking turmoil, which started earlier in March with the
collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, has led markets to reprice
expectations of future monetary tightening by the Federal
Reserve.
Traders' bets are tilted towards no rate hike by the Fed in
May, with odds of a 25-basis-point increase at 41%, according to
CME Group's Fedwatch tool.
Increasing expectations of a pause boosted both Amazon.com
Inc and Tesla Inc shares by about 3%, lifting
consumer discretionary up about 1.5%.
Tech majors Apple Inc , Microsoft Corp and
Nvidia Crop rose 1.3% to 2.3%, boosting the information
technology index.
Thanks to gains in major technology and growth stocks, the
Nasdaq outperformed its peers.
Real estate stocks also advanced 1.8% to lead
sectoral gains.
Michael Barr, the Fed's vice chairman for supervision, will
testify before Congress for a second day after he criticized
SVB's risk management on Tuesday.
A key inflation reading expected at the end of the week will
provide more clues on the Fed's monetary tightening plans.
The CBOE volatility index , known as Wall Street's
fear gauge, fell to its lowest since March 9, reflecting easing
investor anxiety.
At 9:44 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was
up 244.04 points, or 0.75%, at 32,638.29, the S&P 500 was
up 42.12 points, or 1.06%, at 4,013.39, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 162.06 points, or 1.38%, at 11,878.14.
Among major stock moves, Micron Technology Inc advanced 7.3% after the chipmaker forecast a boost to sales in
2025 from artificial intelligence.
Lululemon Athletica Inc jumped 15.2% after
forecasting annual sales and profit above estimates, while Lucid
Group Inc gained 2.0% on plans to lay off about 18% of
its workforce.
U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd slipped 1.5%, a day after touching a more than one-month high on
the internet giant's revamp and listing plans.
Lucid Group Inc gained 1.4% on plans to lay off
about 18% of its workforce.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 5.60-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and 3.07-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded six new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 32 new highs and 41 new lows.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas; Editing by
Dhanya Ann Thoppil and Vinay Dwivedi)
