By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Nasdaq continued its record streak Thursday, led by a chip-fueled jump in tech following a slew of positive quarterly earnings.
The Nasdaq climbed 0.94%, and had earlier notched a record of 15,961.4. The S&P 500 rose 0.16% and hit an earlier all-time high of 4,682.55. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.45%, or 162 points.
A chip-led rally in tech following a surge in Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) and Nvidia propelled the broader market higher.
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) jumped more than 13% after {{0|Wells)) Fargo hiked its price target on the stock to $320 per share from $245, on expectations demand the chipmaker's open virtual platform, Omniverse, is set to benefit from the potential metaverse opportunity.
Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) was up more than 12% after shrugging off the chip storage to deliver better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) climbed more than 3% on the day.
Consumer discretionary stocks were also among the top-performing sectors, underpinned by a 14% jump in Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY) after reporting third-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates.
The arts and crafts platform guided Q4 revenue in range of $660 million to $690 million, just shy of estimates for $693.74 million, though management commentary on a limited impact of supply-chain issues in the run up to the holidays supported investor sentiment.
"Management noted that 90% of Etsy sellers source materials locally which should help limit any impact to inventory sellouts and at the same time allow Etsy to benefit from out-of-stock products at larger retailers," Wedbush said in a note.
Domino’s Pizza (NYSE:DPZ), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Ford Motor (NYSE:F) were also among the biggest sector gainers, with the latter up more than 3% after detailing plans to repurchase $5 billion in junk bonds in a bid to strengthen its balance sheet and restore its credit rating.
Against slew of better-than-expected quarterly results, Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) proved one of the notable exceptions, tumbling 19%, as earnings as well as revenue fell short of estimates. The drug maker slashed its Covid-19 vaccine sales forecast for the year.
Merck & Inc (NYSE:MRK) rose 1% after it its Covid-19 pill received approval in the UK.
A slide in financials, however, paced by falling banking stocks, kept a lid on gains in the broader market.
Bank stocks were on the backfoot following a fall in U.S. Treasury yields in the wake of the Federal Reserve signaling on Wednesday that it would be no rush to begin raising rates despite plans to begin tapering its monthly bond purchases later this month.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), People’s United Financial (NASDAQ:PBCT), and Lincoln National (NYSE:LNC) were down sharply, with latter down more than 6%.
Energy were under pressure after the OPEC+ alliance agreed to stick with the current production plan despite calls from President Joe Biden to ramp-up production to ease the jump in energy prices.
On the economic front, jobless claims fell more than expected, stoking investor optimism about a recovery in the labor market just a day ahead of the Friday's nonfarm payroll report.