Stocks climb higher as investors shake off hawkish Fed commentary

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all moved higher as investors did not seem to be spooked by the Fed’s hawkish commentary and instead focused on yesterday’s blowout earnings from Amazon . The S&P 500 closed up 0.3% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.5%, as did the Russell 2000.

The S&P 500 is on a six-month winning streak, its longest since 2021, and the Nasdaq 100 notched its seventh consecutive monthly gain, a hot streak not seen since 2017, primarily due to the fact the Magnificent 7 have also had seven straight months of gains. 

Stocks that moved higher: 

• Amazon notched a new all-time high after a monster quarter, with AWS revenue growing 20% year on year.

• Investors upvoted Reddit after it posted generally strong Q3 financials yesterday.

• Netflix rose after the streamer announced in yesterday’s earnings call that it’ll perform a 10-for-1 forward stock split.

• Hims & Hers rose after JPMorgan disclosed that it substantially increased its position in the telehealth company.

• Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported better-than-expected Q3 sales, profit, and transaction numbers than Wall Street analysts had expected yesterday, sending shares higher.

• Strategy jumped following yesterday’s report of third-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ estimates.

• Gene-editing stocks Intellia, Beam Therapeutics Inc, Crispr Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, and Prime Medicine rose after the industry’s top regulator told Bloomberg News that the Food and Drug Administration plans to publish a paper in early November outlining the agency’s new, faster approach to approving those treatments.

• Western Digital, a maker of the decades-old data storage devices known as hard disk drives that’s become a top stock this year due to the AI boom, rose after it had nothing but good news in yesterday’s Q1 earnings report. The company has received a bevy of target price hikes since reporting results.
  

Stocks that moved lower: 

• AbbVie slipped after it reported earnings results that beat Wall Street estimates, but also showed a slowdown in its oncology and aesthetics business.

• Getty Images initially climbed higher after announcing a multiyear licensing deal with AI search company Perplexity AI before closing slightly lower.