Stock Market Today: Stocks get Fed boost; Apple and Amazon on deck

Check back for updates throughout the trading day

U.S. stocks extended gains Thursday, powered in part by further advances for the tech sector and a pullback in Treasury bond yields, as investors reacted to dovish rate signals from the Federal Reserve while eyeing earnings from Apple and Amazon after the bell.

Updated at 9:45 AM EDT

Solid open

The S&P 500 was marked 34 points higher, or 0.62%, in the opening minutes of trading, with the Nasdaq rising 110 points, or 0.63%.

The Dow, meanwhile, was marked 160 points while the small cap Russell 2000 gained 5 points, or 0.24%.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields, meanwhile, were flirting with the 4% threshold and changing hands at 4.008%, while 2-year notes hit a multi-week low of 4.239%.

Updated at 8:36 AM EDT

Cooling labor market

Weekly jobless claims jumped higher over the period ending on July 27, with 249,000 Americans filing for unemployment benefits, a 14,000 increase from the prior reading.

Challenger Gray, meanwhile, noted that job cuts rose for a fourth time this year (on an annual basis) in July, taking the year-to-date total to 460,530. That's down 4.4% from last year, but overall hiring is running at the slowest pace since 2012, the report noted.

Updated at 7:58 AM EDT

Long-awaited release

Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been held on espionage charges in Russia for the past 18 months, was released in a prisoner swap with the U.S., according to multiple media reports.

Gershkovich, who was charged in March of last year and last month was handed a sixteen year sentence, will return to the U.S. along with former Marine Paul Whelan.

Updated at 7:10 AM EDT

Hawkish cut?

The Bank of England cut its key lending rate for the first time in four years, taking it to 5% from 5.25%, in a knife-edge vote that suggests deep divisions among policy makers.

The central bank's nine-member policy committee voted 5-4 in favor of the cut, the first since August 2020, even as it forecast that inflation is likely to accelerate over the coming months.

"Inflationary pressures have eased enough that we've been able to cut interest rates today. But we need to make sure inflation stays low, and be careful not to cut interest rates too quickly or by too much," said BoE Governor Andrew Bailey.

Stock Market Today

Outsized tech moves, particularly in the chip sector, helped both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 post their biggest single-gains since February last night as Nvidia ( NVDA ) added a record $330 billion in market value amid a 12.8% surge.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's suggestion that a September rate cut is now on the table, provided that jobs and inflation data continue to support the central bank's twin mandate, also added to broader market gains after the Fed kept rates at a 22-year high of between 5.25% and 5.5%.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yields, which have now fallen more than 25 basis points since the most recent Fed meeting in July, retreated to 4.055% in overnight trading, with 2-year notes pegged at 4.284%.

The CME Group's FedWatch, meanwhile, suggests traders have locked in bets for a September rate cut, with the odds of a 50 basis point move pegged at 13.5%.

Related: Fed drops biggest hint yet on next interest rate move

With today's session likely focused on June-quarter updates from Apple ( AAPL ) and Amazon ( AMZN ) after the bell, last night's stronger-than-expected earnings report from Meta Platforms ( META ) is driving shares in the Facebook parent firmly higher.

The group posted a Wall-Street-beating revenue tally of $39.1 billion, thanks in part to what it called "healthy global advertising demand," and issued a solid near-term forecast that could offset its AI-spending ramp.

Meta shares were marked 7.2% higher in premarket trading and on track to add around $85 billion in market value.

Heading into the start of the trading day, the S&P 500, which ended the month of July with a 1.13% gain, is priced for a 19-point opening bell advance, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average called 61 points to the upside.

The tech-focused Nasdaq, which recorded a 0.75% decline in July, is set to open 87 points higher.

In overseas markets, Britain's FTSE 100 was little changed ahead of a key Bank of England rate decision later in London, while the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 benchmark slipped 0.38% to kick off August trading.

More Wall Street Analysts:

• Analyst revisits Nvidia stock price target after Blackwell checks
• Analysts prescribe new Walgreens stock price targets after earnings
• Analyst revises Facebook parent stock price target in AI arms race

Overnight in Asia, a sharp move higher in the yen, which traded through the 150 mark against the U.S. dollar, clipped gains for the Nikkei 225, which ended 2.49% lower in Tokyo.

The regional MSCI ex-Japan benchmark, meanwhile, was marked 0.45% higher heading into the close of trading.

Related: Veteran fund manager sees world of pain coming for stocks