The Dow Jones Industrials lost 39.02 points, however, to close Thursday at 34,053.94. The major index was dragged lower by Merck shares after the pharmaceutical firm issued a weak outlook in its latest earnings results, despite beating estimates on the top and bottom lines.
The S&P 500 gained 60.55 points, or 1.5%, to 4,179.76.
The NASDAQ Composite spiked 384.5 points, or 3.7%, to 12,200.82.
The gains come ahead of a trio of Big Tech results after the bell in Apple, Amazon and Alphabet.
Meta surged about 23% in its best day since 2013 after reporting a fourth-quarter beat on revenue and announcing a $40-billion stock buyback. That helped investors look past losses in the business unit overseeing the metaverse.
Other mega-cap tech stocks rose on the back of those results. Shares of Google-parent Alphabet were up nearly 7.3%, while Amazon jumped about 7.4. Apple shares gained 3.7%.
Tech stocks have outperformed in 2023, buoyed by recent signals of cooling inflation that investors expect could lead to a pause from the Federal Reserve in its aggressive rate hiking campaign. The S&P 500 information technology sector is up more than 13% this year after a decline of more than 28% last year.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury heightened, reducing yields to 3.39% from Wednesday’s 3.42%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dipped 64 cents to $75.77 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices sagged $16.30 to $1,926.50 U.S. an ounce.