Wall Street opens higher led by tech rally
- Technology shares post decisive gains boosted by upbeat earnings figures.
- Nasdaq Composite adds more than 1% at the start of the day.
- GDP data confirms slowdown in economic growth in Q2.
Major equity indexes in the US started the day in the positive territory on Friday boosted by the sharp upsurge witnessed in technology shares. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were up 0.2% and 0.5% on the day while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was adding 1.05%.
Strong second-quarter earnings figures from tech-giants Google Alphabet and Intel today fueled the rally. At the moment, the S&P 500 Communication Services index is rising nearly 3% on the day while the S&P 500 Technology Index is gaining 0.55%.
Meanwhile, today's data published by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showed that the economy lost momentum in the second quarter with the real GDP growth easing to 2.1% on a yearly basis from 3.1% in the first quarter. However, this reading came in better than the experts' forecast of 1.8% to offset a potential negative impact on the market sentiment.
Among the 11-major S&P 500 sectors, Energy and Materials are down 0.48% and 0.28%, respectively, to lead the losers.