Investing
Wall Street rallies on tech gains and economic data
The S&P 500 saw its biggest gain in more than a month on Thursday, supported by technology stocks and strong GDP data.
The index finished the day 1.1% up at 1,794 as technology giants Facebook and Google rallied.
Facebook’s shares soared 14% to $61.08, after the social medial group beat analysts’ expectations, posting its strongest revenue growth in two years.
Google was also up 2.6% to $11.35, a day after Lenovo Group committed to buying its Motorola handset division for $2.91bn.
The tech giant’s shares extended gains by a further 4.6% after the closing bell, after the firm reported its own set of forecast-beating quarterly revenue figures.
Meanwhile, economic growth data helped lift sentiment among US investors, with GDP at an annualised rate of 3.2% for the fourth quarter of 2013.
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Thursday’s gains have pushed the blue-chip index back into positive territory for the week, but it remains down 2.8% year to date.
Elsewhere, European markets recovered some of their weakness on Thursday; the DAX, Ibex 35 and FTSE MIB all ended the day in positive territory, up 0.4%, 0.7%, and 0.4% respectively.
However, the FTSE did not manage to recover losses, as emerging markets weighed on Britain’s blue chips stocks, and the market ended the day flat at 6,538.