On Tuesday, though, optimism ruled. The stock market’s gains accelerated after a report released by the Conference Board said confidence among US consumers improved by more in May than economists expected.
It was the first increase in six months, and consumers’ expectations for income, business and the job market in the short term jumped sharply, though it still remains below the level that typically signals a recession ahead. About half the survey results came after Trump paused some of his tariffs on China.
The rise in confidence was widespread, covering different age and income groups, according to the Conference Board.
On Wall Street, Nvidia rallied 3.2 per cent and was the strongest single force driving the S&P 500 higher ahead of its profit report coming on Wednesday. It’s the last to report this quarter among the “Magnificent Seven” Big Tech companies that have grown so large that their stock movements dominate the rest of the market.
Nvidia has been riding a tidal wave of growth created by the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, but it is also facing criticism that its stock price has shot too high.
Trump Media & Technology, the company behind Truth Social, announced it was aiming to buy $US2.5 billion ($3.9 billion) of bitcoin for its treasury. The company said it had agreed to sell around $US1.5 billion in stock and $US1 billion in convertible bonds to finance the move.
The company’s shares slumped 10.4 per cent after rallying premarket following a Financial Times report on its plans to raise capital to spend on cryptocurrencies.
Trump Media is the latest company connected to President Donald Trump to invest in crypto. PSQ Holdings, which his son Donald Trump Jr. sits on the board of, also announced plans on Tuesday to explore a digital asset treasury strategy. They join numerous other companies in following the model that Michael Saylor created at Strategy, by using equity and debt offerings to fund Bitcoin purchases.
Trump Media will add Bitcoin to its balance sheet along with its current cash, cash equivalents and investments, which were worth $US759 million at the end of the first quarter, according to a filing Tuesday.
Informatica climbed 6 per cent after Salesforce said it would buy the AI-powered cloud data management company in an all-stock deal valuing it at about $US8 billion. Salesforce rose 1.5 per cent.
They were part of widespread gains across the US stock market, where 93 per cent of the stocks within the S&P 500 rose.
One of the outliers was AutoZone, which fell 3.7 per cent following a mixed report on its performance for the three months through May 10. Its profit fell short of analysts’ expectations, though its growth in revenue was stronger than expected.
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CEO Phil Daniele said both its DIY and commercial businesses did well domestically, but shifting moves in foreign-currency values put pressure on the retailer’s operations outside the United States.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 118.72 points to 5,921.54. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 740.58 to 42,343.65, and the Nasdaq composite gained 461.96 to 19,199.16.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased to take some of the pressure off the stock market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.44 per cent from 4.51 per cent late Friday. It had been rising last week, in part because of worries about the US government’s rapidly increasing debt.
Yields had been climbing for bond markets around the developed world, particularly in Japan, where a recent auction of longer-term bonds found relatively few buyers. But analysts said worries eased a bit after Japan’s finance ministry sent a questionnaire to bond investors that they took as a signal of efforts to calm the market.
In stock markets abroad, European indexes mostly rose, while Asian indexes were mixed.
AP
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