Stocks rallied on Wednesday south of the border as the corporate earnings season kicked off with mostly positive results, and traders looked past surging inflation numbers.
The Dow Jones Industrials moved skyward 344.23 points, or 1%, to 34,564.59.
The S&P 500 climbed 49.14 points, or 1.1%, to 4,446.59
The NASDAQ Composite hiked 272.02 points, or 2%, to 13,643.59.
BlackRock, Fastenal and Delta Air Lines all traded higher on the back of better-than-expected quarterly results. Delta also got a boost after the airline said it expects to return to profitability this quarter.
Other travel stocks surged as a group on the back of Delta’s higher forecast, which indicated consumers will continue flying this year despite surging inflation. American Airlines soared more than 8%, Southwest Airlines jumped past 6%, Expedia rallied 3.6% and Carnival Corporation jumped nearly 5%.
Chip stocks climbed higher with Nvidia rallying about 3%, Qualcomm jumping past 4%, and Advanced Micro Devices increasing almost 3%. Micron Technology also gained 2%.
To be sure, shares of JPMorgan Chase fell 3% after the banking giant reported a $524-million hit caused by market dislocations due to sanctions against Russia. The bank also posted a 42% decline in first-quarter profits. JPMorgan did manage, however, to report $31.59 billion in revenue for the period, slightly more than expected by analysts.
CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the bank was building up credit reserves because of “higher probabilities of downside risk” to the U.S. economy.
Meanwhile, PayPal shares dropped nearly 4% following an announcement from Walmart, which said Tuesday it hired PayPal executive John Rainey as its new chief financial officer.
On Wednesday, a report showed producer prices — wholesale costs that could eventually lead to higher retail prices — jumped a record 11.2% in March on an annual basis. The monthly gain of 1.4% topped the 1.1% estimate from economists polled by Dow Jones.
Treasury prices gained ground, putting yields back down to 2.70%, from Tuesday’s 2.73%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices gathered $3.66 to $104.26 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gained $4.60 to $1,980.70 U.S. an ounce.
