Wall Street rallied on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average clawing its way back from Wednesday’s ugly 600-point plunge to close up almost 400 points at day’s end.
Amid a flurry of strong tech earnings, Microsoft and other companies rebounded from the previous day's routing, which had pushed the tech-heavy Nasdaq into correction territory for the first time since 2016. Wednesday's nosedive marked the Nasdaq's biggest one-day percentage decline since 2011.
While the market was buoyed by investors snapping up bargain stocks on Thursday, a sentiment of caution prevailed. Market strategists continued to weigh the impact of President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with China, as well as geopolitical tensions and unrest in emerging markets.
Robust earnings from tech heavyweights, including Twitter and Tesla, helped Wall Street regain its footing. Tesla shares soared by almost 10 percent after it reported a quarterly profit for only the third time in its history, and Twitter stock surged after a 29 percent boost to its advertising revenue.
Google parent Alphabet and Amazon both reported immediately after the bell, massively beating expectations on earnings but disappointing investors on revenue, causing shares to fall by 5 percent and 6 percent respectively.