NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks opened higher early Thursday following solid results from chip company Micron as markets digested a weaker than expected US first-quarter growth report.
Micron’s profits were more than five times the level in the year-ago period as the tech company pointed to heavy growth in its data center business and signaled it expects record revenue.
Micron was higher early Thursday, along with Nvidia, another big artificial intelligence winner.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.5 percent at 43,201.07.
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The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.3 percent to 6,109.69, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index edged up 0.1 percent to 19,995.85.
“The market seems to like Micron’s earnings and guidance,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers. “Barring some major piece of news right now, the mood in the market is it seems to be, you know, buy tech until it stops working.”
Data meanwhile showed the US economy decreased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter, a bigger fall than in the previous GDP estimate.
However, markets tend to take such data in stride because it is backward looking and the calendar is now approaching the end of the second quarter.
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