The U.S. Stocks touch record highs after round of strong earnings

Stocks hit fresh records on Tuesday after the latest batch of earnings results impressed investors.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% after reaching a fresh all-time intraday high earlier in the session. The broad market index was up 0.3% at its peak. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 239 points, or 0.5%. At their respective highs, the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.6%, and the 30-stock Dow jumped about 0.8%.

Shares of United Parcel Service and Wayfair gained 6% and 22%, respectively, after their results for the third quarter both exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. PayPal, which saw its latest quarterly results top analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines as well, increased 10% after the company told CNBC that it has partnered with OpenAI to have its digital wallet embedded into ChatGPT, effectively allowing users to pay for items found through the artificial intelligence tool.

So far, the earnings season is off to a “fantastic” start, Mike Dickson of Horizon Investments told CNBC. About one-third of S&P 500 companies have reported. Of those, 83% have beaten earnings expectations, according to FactSet data.

“Obviously, valuations have been fairly elevated by historical standards, and we’ve probably gotten about all the help we’re going to get out of the Fed without something bad [going] wrong,” the firm’s head of research and quantitative strategies said. “This has got to be led by the earnings side of things, and quite frankly, to start, we have absolutely seen that.”

Several “Magnificent Seven” names are set to report this week, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft, which together account for roughly one quarter of the S&P 500′s total value. Amazon announced it will begin layoffs on Tuesday, with the move expected to amount to the largest cuts to its workforce in the company’s history. That adds to the slew of job cuts seen in the tech industry this year. Apple and Microsoft were bright spots, however, as both stocks crossed $4 trillion in value during Tuesday’s session.