Bulls Stampede On Fed's Dovish Signal, Nasdaq 100 Hits New Record High, DOJ Sues Apple: What's Driving Markets Thursday?

Bulls are on fire in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve’s March policy meeting, igniting a rally in stocks across the board on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 index surged above 5,250 points, continuing its upward trajectory to set new record highs. All eleven sectors of the S&P 500 posted gains.

Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 surpassed 18,440 points, also achieving unprecedented all-time highs. The Dow Jones added over 300 points, edging closer to the historic milestone of 40,000 points.

In a notable display of risk sentiment, small caps also rose as evidenced by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM up by 0.9%.

Shares of Apple Inc. AAPL faced a setback, down over 3%, as the Justice Department and 16 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant. The lawsuit alleges that Apple exerted monopolistic control in the smartphone market.

The U.S. dollar index rose, driven by significant gains of the greenback against the British pound and the Swiss franc, the latter of which suffered due to an unforeseen rate cut by the Swiss National Bank.

Gold paused for a breather, down 0.5%, after closing above $2,200 on Wednesday. Bitcoin BTC/USD fell 2% to $66,400.

Thursday’s Performance In Major US Indices, ETFs

Major Indices	Price	1-day %chg
Nasdaq 100	18,447.55	1.1%
Russell 2000	2,099.85	0.8%
Dow Jones	39,837.39	0.8%
S&P 500	5,261.46	0.7%

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY rose 0.7% $523.87, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA rose 0.8% to $398.19 and the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ rallied 1.2% to $449.06, according to Benzinga Pro data. 

Among sectors, the Industrials Select Sector SPDR Fund XLI was the top performer for the day, up 1.1%, while the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund XLU was the laggard with a flat performance.

Thursday’s Stock Movers

• Shares of Reddit Inc. RDDT are indicated to open at $50-$52, in their first day of trading.
• Micron Technology, Inc. MU rallied nearly 16% following the memory chipmaker’s earnings announcement.
• Chipmaker peers such as Broadcom Inc. AVGO rose 9% following a bullish note from Goldman Sachs.
• Other stocks moving on earnings are Steelcase Inc. SCS (down over 10%) and Five Below, Inc. FIVE (down about 15%), Accenture plc ACN (down 8%), Winnebago Industries, Inc. WGO (up over 5%) and Shoe Carnival, Inc. SCVL (up nearly 7%), Darden Restaurants, Inc. DRI (down 6%).
• Those reporting after the close include FedEx Corporation FDX, Lululemon Athletica Inc. LULU, NIKE, Inc. NKE and Worthington Steel, Inc. WS.

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Image created using artificial intelligence with Midjourney.