Megacap tech stocks lead Wall Street rebound despite war uncertainties; Nasdaq outperforms

Wall Street indices staged a rebound from a three-day sell-off on Wednesday led by megacap tech companies, as positive economic data overshadowed uncertainties from the ongoing US-Iran war, that still shows no signs of de-escalation entering its sixth day.

The Dow Jones gained nearly 250 points in mid-week trading, while the S&P 500 rose 0.8%. The Nasdaq was the outperformer, rising over 1%, led by chipmakers Nvidia and AMD. Amazon's 4% rally, despite the Middle East data centre issues, also aided the upmove. Apple and Microsoft were the underperformers among big tech names.

US services activity expanded at the fastest pace since mid-2022 with 14 industries reporting growth and a measure of new orders rising to the highest in more than a year. After a underwhelming producer price data last week, inflation at services providers fell to the lowest in a year. Order backlogs at service providers also rose to the highest level in four years.

In addition to the services data, US companies added 63,000 jobs in February, the most since July last year, and also higher than estimates of 50,000, according to private payrolls data released by ADP.

On the US-Iran war front, the senate failed to pass a resolution curbing President Donald Trump's powers for further attacks, with the resolution failing with a 47-53 vote, indicating that Republican senators are still not ready to oppose Trump's plans.

After making a high of 99.33 on Wednesday, the US Dollar index cooled off slightly to slip below 99. Crude prices too, remain above $80 but, are lower from the previous day's high, which crossed $84 per barrel on US assurances of a safe passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Prices of Bitcoin remain volatile, but are off their 2025 lows.