By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Dow surged on Wednesday, as technology stocks fought back from session lows and bank stocks continued to extend gains, overshadowing concerns over U.S.-China tensions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.21%, or 553 points, the S&P 500 gained 1.48%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.77%.
Tech stocks, which have led the rally from the lows seen in March, pared losses to end the day positive, with FAANG names rebounding from intraday lows.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) ended the day just below the flatline, while Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) ended up on the day.
Elsewhere in tech, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) fell 3% as President Donald Trump threatened action against the social media company for starting fact check his tweets.
Bank stocks, meanwhile, continued their bold start to the week as reopening optimism has stoked hopes of a quicker economic recovery.
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) rose about 5.8%, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) was up 6.90% and Citigroup (NYSE:C) jumped 8.5%.
The optimism over the reopening of economies has coincided with growing hopes that a vaccine can be found sooner rather than later, with some, including Trump, touting year-end as a possible target.
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, however, said a publically availability vaccine is unlikely to arrive before 2021.
Industrials also caught a bid on the back of a sharp uptick in General Electric (NYSE:GE) after the conglomerate said it would be selling its lighting division as part of ongoing restructuring efforts.
The rebound on Wall Street comes against a backdrop of escalating U.S.-China tensions. The U.S. has declared that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous following China's move to impose a national security law in the city, raising fears that U.S. sanctions on Beijing may soon follow.