Big tech stokes Nasdaq as yields dip on Fed hopes

Bulls piled back into global stock markets, encouraged by an easing in Sino-U.S. tensions and growing confidence that the Federal Reserve will be able to slow its rate hiking pace.

As Treasury yields and the dollar slipped, index futures on the Nasdaq 100 jumped more than 1 per cent, boosted also by hefty gains earlier across Asian technology companies. Chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Intel Corp. rose between 1.3 per cent-2 per cent in U.S. premarket trading, while Tesla Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., and Alphabet Inc. all added about 1 per cent each.

Markets have turned risk-on in recent days, trading off a softer-than-expected U.S. data print that many reckon will allow the Fed to raise rates in 50 basis-point increment, after three 75 basis-point hikes. That view was encouraged by Vice Chair Lael Brainard who said on Monday it would probably be “appropriate soon to move to a slower pace of increases.”

“The issue the market has to wrestle with is how long is the Fed going to keep rates at that level and I think there is some positive sentiment out there that the Fed is going to pivot sometime in 2023,” Peter Kraus, Chairman and CEO at Aperture Investors, told Bloomberg Television.