Caixin.com, Aug 1st -- (Editor Xia Junxiong) On Wednesday, US stocks opened high and rose, with the three major indices collectively rising, the S&P 500 up over 1.5% and the Nasdaq up over 2.5%, both achieving the best single-day performance since February.

(Three major index minute chart, source: TradingView)

At the close, the Dow Jones index rose 0.24% to 40,842.79 points, the S&P 500 index rose 1.58% to 5,522.30 points, and the Nasdaq index rose 2.64% to 17,599.40 points.

The Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged on Wednesday, in line with market expectations. At the press conference after the rate decision, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell hinted that if inflation continues to fall, the Fed is ready to cut interest rates in September.

Zhiwei Ren, portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management, said he is almost certain that the Fed will cut rates in September.

Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL, said: "The Fed used today's statement to prepare the market for the forthcoming rate cut. As inflation improves and unemployment rises, the Fed can keep the nominal fund rate higher than the inflation rate while cutting interest rates. The market may respond positively to this subtle change in tone."

Nvidia rose nearly 13%, with a market capitalization increase of $329 billion, marking the largest single-day increase in the company's history since February 22. AMD's performance better than expected has raised the market's optimism for the semiconductor industry.

Microsoft fell more than 1% against the trend with disappointing cloud computing revenue in its latest quarterly report.

Popular stocks performance

Large technology stocks rose across the board, with Apple up 1.50%, Tesla up 4.24%, Google up 0.73%, Amazon up 2.90%, Meta up 2.51%, Microsoft down 1.08%; chip stocks rose collectively, with Nvidia up 12.81%, Broadcom up 11.96%, ASML Holding up 8.89%, Qualcomm up 8.39%, Taiwan Semiconductor up 7.29%, Micron Technology up 7.08%, and AMD up 4.36%.

China concept stocks rose across the board, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index up 0.78%, Alibaba up 1.09%, JD.com up 0.11%, PDD Holdings up 4.65%, Nio Inc up 0.45%, Xpeng up 1.51%, Li Auto Inc up 5.11%, Bilibili up 1.54%, Baidu down 0.19%, Netease up 0.50%, Tencent Music up 2.01%, and iQiyi up 3.10%.

Company news

Meta's second-quarter revenue beat expectations.

Meta's second quarter revenue was $39.07 billion, analyst expectations were $38.34 billion; second quarter EPS was $5.16, analyst expectations were $4.72; second quarter advertising revenue was $38.33 billion, a YoY growth of 22%; second quarter APP series revenue was $38.72 billion, analyst expectations were $37.76 billion; second quarter Reality Labs operations loss was $4.496 billion, analyst expectations were a loss of $4.53 billion; second quarter operating profit was $14.85 billion, analyst expectations were $14.59 billion; third quarter revenue is expected to be between $38.5 billion and $41 billion, analyst expectations are $39.16 billion; estimated annual capital expenditures between $37 billion and $40 billion; still expected that Reality Labs' operating loss will be higher for the year; capital expenditures are expected to increase significantly in 2025.

As of press time, Meta rose more than 7% after hours.

Arm's first-quarter total revenue exceeded expectations, but the full-year revenue outlook was disappointing.

Arm's Q1 total revenue was $0.939 billion, exceeding analyst expectations of $0.9054 billion. Adjusted earnings per share for Q1 were $0.40, exceeding analyst expectations of $0.34. Estimated Q2 revenue is $0.78 billion-$0.83 billion, with analyst expectations of $0.8062 billion. Estimated adjusted earnings per share for Q2 are $0.23-$0.27, with analyst expectations of $0.27. Full-year revenue expectations of $3.8 billion-$4.1 billion remain unchanged, with analyst expectations of $4 billion.

As of press time, Arm fell nearly 13% after hours.

Qualcomm released a strong fourth-quarter revenue outlook.

Qualcomm's third-quarter adjusted revenue was $9.39 billion, beating analysts' expectations of $9.21 billion; third-quarter adjusted EPS was $2.33, beating analysts' expectations of $2.24; estimated fourth-quarter revenue is $9.5 billion-10.3 billion, with analyst expectations of $9.7 billion; estimated fourth-quarter adjusted EPS is $2.45-2.65, with analyst expectations of $2.45.

Qualcomm rose more than 6% after hours, but narrowed to more than 1% by press time.

Citigroup has repeatedly violated Fed Regulation W and is working to resolve related compliance issues.

An insider revealed that Citigroup is working to resolve compliance issues related to protecting customer deposits. On Wednesday, the media cited internal company documents reporting that the bank has violated the Federal Reserve's W regulations multiple times, which set restrictions on transactions between banks and subsidiaries. 'We are fully committed to complying with laws and regulations and have a strong W regulations framework to ensure timely detection, reporting and remediation of issues,' a Citigroup spokesperson said in an email statement.

Boeing appointed Ortberg as CEO to revitalize its troubled business.

Boeing has appointed Kelly Ortberg as the next CEO, entrusting one of the most complex challenges facing the US business community to this aviation industry veteran. The announcement comes as the US aircraft manufacturer reports a significant loss in the second quarter. Ortberg, 64, is an engineer who has worked for aviation supplier Rockwell Collins, which is now part of RTX Corp. He will take office on August 8th.

Ali Baba is launching an AI conversational procurement engine that is expected to be released in September.

Alibaba's international digital business group announced on July 31st the launch of an AI-based conversational procurement engine, which is expected to make its debut in September this year. According to the announcement, the engine focuses on B2B e-commerce and aims to change the global procurement process for small and medium-sized enterprises, making it more intuitive and efficient. This new service will integrate all e-commerce platforms, focus on understanding natural language and converting it into professional procurement requests, and can also forecast procurement demand and provide suggestions.