Tech companies fuel Wall Street’s rise

Momentum carries over from moderate jobs report last week

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks rose Monday and added to their gains from last week, as technology companies once again led the way.

The S&P 500 rose 52.95, or 1 percent, to 5,180.74. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 176.59, or 0.5 percent, to 38,852.27, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 192.92, or 1.2 percent, to 16,349.25.

Tech stocks were at the forefront, with familiar ringleaders Nvidia and Super Micro Computer again pulling the market higher. They’ve had a couple hiccups recently, but a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology has Nvidia up 86.1 percent for the year so far after Monday’s 3.8 percent gain. Super Micro is up 192.1 percent after its gain of 6.1 percent.

Vistra, an electricity and power generation company, rose 2.1 percent after investors learned it will join the widely tracked S&P 500 index on Wednesday. Freshpet jumped 10.4 percent after reporting better results than expected in large part because it sold 30 percent more food for cats and dogs, and Berkshire Hathaway added 1 percent after Warren Buffett’s company reported its latest quarterly results over the weekend.

They helped to offset a

9.7 percent slide for Spirit Airlines, which reported a slightly worse loss than expected.

Apple slipped 0.9 percent after Berkshire Hathaway revealed it had pared its stake in the tech giant.

Markets found a burst of optimism at the end of last week following a cooler-than-expected jobs report. It suggested the U.S. economy could nail the tightrope walk of staying strong enough to avoid a bad recession, but not so firm that it puts too much upward pressure on inflation.

Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle said he still expects two cuts to rates this year, in July and November, after Fed Chair Jerome Powell “pushed back strongly against the possibility of further rate hikes” last week.

In the bond market, which has been dictating much of the action in the stock market recently, Treasury yields held mostly steady.

Traders are betting on a nearly 89 percent chance that the Fed will cut its main interest rate at least once before the end of the year, according to data from CME Group. That’s up from an 81.6 percent probability seen a week earlier. Lower rates would help ease the pressure on the economy and financial system.