Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stocks jumped Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rising to new all-time highs, as traders cheered the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday decision to lower interest rates by a half percentage point.
The 30-stock index advanced 522.09 points, or 1.26%, ending at 42,025.19, marking its first close above the 42,000 threshold. The S&P 500 rose 1.7% to close at 5,713.64, topping 5,700 for the first time. The Nasdaq Composite surged 2.51% to end at 18,013.98.
Traders got some validation that the Fed was engineering a soft landing for the economy on Thursday as weekly jobless claims fell by 12,000 to 219,000, which was far below estimates.
Tech stocks rallied as the rate cut spurred investors to return to a risk-on mood. Nvidia and AMD shares popped about 4% and nearly 6%, respectively. Micron Technology added 2.2%. Other Big Tech stocks such…
