Wall Street surged higher on Thursday, marking the biggest rally since 2020, after October's reading of consumer prices boosted bets that inflation has peaked. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared over 1,200 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite jumped over 5% and 7%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +5.54% or +207.80 points to 3,956.37
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +3.70% or +1,201.43 points to 33,715.37
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +7.35% or +760.97 points to 11,114.15
Thursday's dramatic moves followed each of the major averages falling at least 2% in the previous session amid heightened U.S. midterm election uncertainty.
Driving stocks higher, October's consumer price index (CPI) rose just 0.4% for the month and 7.7% annually, marking the index's lowest annual increase since January and a slowdown from the 8.2% annual increase in September.
Excluding more volatile food and energy prices, so-called core CPI rose 0.3% month-over-month and 6.3% year-over-year, both of which were also less-than-expected.
In response to the easing inflation, technology stocks surged higher on Thursday. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares were up over 12%, while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) each rose over 8%. Shares of the battered Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) also jumped more than 10%, while Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shares rose 7%.
Semiconductor stocks also gained, with shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) climbing 14%, Lam Research adding 12% and Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) rising more than 11%.
Traders had previously hoped the Federal Reserve would begin easing its aggressive monetary policy plans as economic data softens. However, Chair Jerome Powell said in remarks last month that it would be premature for the Fed to start easing interest rate hikes at the first sign of cooling as the labor market remains tight.
In other economic data news, initial filings for unemployment insurance rose last week, but still remained near historic lows. First-time jobless claims totaled 225,000 for the week ended November 10, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week, according to the Labor Department.
Elsewhere, Wedbush removed Tesla from its top stock list on Thursday, with analyst Dan Ives saying CEO Elon Musk has hurt the electric carmaker's reputation with his acquisition of Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), calling it the "Twitter train wreck disaster".
"More worrying it that this Twitter 'Money Pit' situation will never end and continue to take up money, time, and attention from Musk instead that could be focused on Tesla," Ives said.