LIVE MARKETS-Stocks resume climb as S&P 500, Nasdaq close at record levels

Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com

STOCKS RESUME CLIMB AS S&P 500, NASDAQ CLOSE AT RECORD LEVELS

U.S. stocks advanced on Wednesday and powered once again by technology shares, the benchmark S&P index and the Nasdaq registered fresh record closing levels. This was one day after the S&P 500 .SPX had snapped a seven-session win streak, which had been its longest in over five months.

The S&P 500 tech index .SPLRCT rallied 1.5% on the day and is up almost 25% on the year as the best performing of the 11 major S&P sectors. Dell DELL.N rallied 9.1% after the company nearly doubled its annual profit growth target for the next four years, betting on robust demand for its servers that power artificial intelligence workloads.

Also boosting the sector was a surge of 11.4% in AMD AMD.O, pushing its 3-day gain to 43% after announcing a chip-supply deal with OpenAI.

With the economic calendar barren due to the ongoing government shutdown, investors have to reply on secondary economic indicators and comments from Federal Reserve officials for clues on the health of the economy and direction of monetary policy. The minutes from the central bank's most recent meeting, released on Wednesday, showed that officials agreed risks to the U.S. job market had increased enough to warrant an interest rate cut, but they remained wary of high inflation amid a debate about how much borrowing costs were weighing on the economy.

"As the government shutdown persists and data releases are postponed, the risks to growth are growing while the risks to inflation are the same as they were or falling," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

"If September’s cut was a risk-management cut, it would be hard to argue they shouldn’t cut again in October."

Despite the rise in stocks, a jump in gold to over the $4,000 mark reflected concerns about global geopolitical and economic uncertainty, along with expectations for continued rate cuts from the Fed.

Below is your closing market snapshot:

(Chuck Mikolajczak)

*****

EARLIER ON LIVE MARKETS

BOFA UPGRADES HEALTHCARE SECTOR CLICK HERE

ONLY CONSUMER STAPLES REWARD SHORT SELLERS AS TECH, MINING RALLIES BITE CLICK HERE

GERMANY'S DEFENCE SPENDING: A NEW ENGINE FOR MANUFACTURING? CLICK HERE

MORTGAGE RATES INCH LOWER, BUT BORROWERS ARE UNIMPRESSED CLICK HERE

ROUNDHILL BETS ON MEME STOCKS, BRINGS BACK "MEME" ETF CLICK HERE

FED MINUTES IN FOCUS AS US EQUITY MARKETS SET TO OPEN SLIGHTLY HIGHER CLICK HERE

BUBBLE TROUBLE? GOLDMAN SACHS SAYS NOT YET CLICK HERE

STERLING: LESS HEALTHY THAN IT LOOKS CLICK HERE

MORGAN STANLEY TURNS UP THE HEAT ON EUROPE'S MINING SECTOR CLICK HERE

STEELMAKERS GIVE A BOOST TO EUROPEAN STOCKS CLICK HERE

EUROPEAN FUTURES POINTS TO MUTED OPEN CLICK HERE

GOLD AT $4K - BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID CLICK HERE