By Liz Moyer
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks opened higher, extending Wednesday’s Fed-fueled bounce despite news the economy weakened in the second quarter.
At 9:40 AM ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.1% and the NASDAQ Composite was flat.
Investors expect the Federal Reserve to slow the pace of interest rate increases after yet another 0.75-point hike on Wednesday as it tries to tame inflation.
Then, this morning, the first reading of second quarter gross domestic product showed a drop of 0.9%, the second-straight contraction. That’s considered by many to be a recession signal, though the Biden administration has been out refuting the idea of a recession in recent days.
Tech earnings have also been driving stock market gains this week, with the Nasdaq surging more than 4% on Wednesday. Today brings reports from Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) after the closing bell.
Spirit Airlines Inc (NYSE:SAVE) stock rose 3.6% after JetBlue Airways Corp (NASDAQ:JBLU) said it would buy the discount carrier for $3.8 billion, the culmination of a months-long drama that had Spirit terminate another agreement with Frontier Group Holdings on Wednesday as shareholders were set to reject the transaction. JetBlue stock was unchanged.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) shares fell 7.8% after the Facebook parent revealed a pullback in digital advertising on the way to worse-than-expected results.
Oil gained. Crude Oil WTI Futures was up 1.5% to $98.70 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures rose 1.5%, to $103.23 a barrel. Gold Futures rose 1.7%, to $1,748 an ounce.