Stocks climbed Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting records, driven by a surge in tech shares after strong results from Salesforce and Marvell Technology.
The S&P 500 added 0.46%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rallied 1.09%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.54%. The Russell 2000 Index was about flat.
S&P 500 big stock movers today
Five S&P 500 stocks making big midday moves are:
The worst-performing five S&P 500 stocks with the largest midday drop are:
Stocks also worth noting include:
Salesforce leads S&P 500 higher
Salesforce gained 8.7% after the provider of customer-relations-management software posted fiscal third-quarter revenue that beat estimates.
The San Francisco company posted adjusted earnings per share of $2.41, shy of the $2.44 Wall Street estimated. Revenue reached $9.44 billion, up 8% year-over-year and beating the $9.34 billion forecast.
For the fiscal fourth quarter, Salesforce projects revenue of $9.9 billion to $10.1 billion, compared with analysts’ estimates of $10.05 billion. The company also raised the low end of its fiscal 2025 revenue guidance, now expecting $37.8 billion to $38 billion.
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Chief Executive Marc Benioff highlighted Salesforce’s momentum in artificial intelligence, particularly its AI-powered Agentforce platform.
“This is a bold leap in the future of work, where AI agents let humans unite to transform all of our customer interactions,” Benioff said.
Salesforce software helps businesses find more prospects and connect with customers.
Marvell soared on Q3 earnings
Marvell Technology surged 24% after the chipmaker posted fiscal its Q3 results and Q4 outlook.
The company earned 43 cents, topping Wall Street’s estimate of 41 cents. Revenue rose 19% quarter-over-quarter to $1.52 billion, beating forecasts of $1.46 billion.
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Marvell expects Q4 revenue of $1.8 billion and cash earnings of 59 cents a share, both above forecasts.
The company’s AI-related sales are expected to exceed $1.5 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.5 billion in 2025, CEO Matt Murphy said during the earnings call.
"We are seeing strong custom AI demand continue into the fourth quarter and have secured supply-chain capacity," Murphy said.
Pure Storage rallies on hyperscaler cloud win
Pure Storage shares jumped 21% after the data storage company beat Q3 expectations and announced a major "design win" with one of the four biggest hyper-scale cloud providers for its DirectFlash storage technology.
The company didn’t name the hyperscaler, but the top four are Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google.
"This is the first-ever design win to provide flash for standard hyperscaler storage and it is the vanguard for flash storage providing all online storage in major hyperscale environments in the future," Chief Executive Charles Giancarlo said during a conference call.
More Tech Stocks:
Pure Storage reported adjusted earnings of 50 cents a share on $831 million in revenue for the fiscal third quarter ended Nov. 3, surpassing analysts' estimates of 41 cents per share on $815 million.
For Q4, Pure Storage projected $867 million in revenue, above the $856 million expected. It also raised full-year guidance to $3.15 billion from $3 billion.
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