Tech rally, Powell comments boost indexes to record closing highs

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) -All three major U.S. stock indexes scored record closing highs on Wednesday as technology shares rallied after upbeat results from Salesforce (CRM) and as comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a late boost to the market.

The economy is stronger than it appeared in September when the central bank began cutting interest rates, allowing policymakers to potentially be a little more cautious in reducing rates further, Powell said at a New York Times event.

Powell's comments overall along with a Fed economic activity report added to the upbeat tone in the market, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

The Fed said in a summary of surveys and interviews from across the country known as the "Beige Book" that U.S. economic activity has expanded slightly in most regions since early October.

Powell "was very upbeat about economy, and he said we're making progress on inflation... that's good news for stocks in general," Cardillo said.

Investors expect a third consecutive interest-rate cut at the central bank's Dec. 17-18 meeting.

Salesforce (CRM) jumped 11% and hit an all-time high after the enterprise cloud company beat analyst estimates for third-quarter revenue and raised the lower end of its annual revenue forecast. Other cloud companies also advanced.

The S&P 500 technology index hit a record closing high, along with the communication services and consumer discretionary indexes.

Also in the tech space, Marvell Technology (MRVL) rallied 23.2% and also hit a record high after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue above analyst estimates. An index of semiconductors rose 1.7%, while Nvidia was up 3.5%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 308.91 points, or 0.69%, to 45,014.44, the S&P 500 gained 36.59 points, or 0.60%, to 6,086.47 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 254.21 points, or 1.30%, to 19,735.12.

Investors eagerly await monthly U.S. jobs data due on Friday and jobless claims data on Thursday.

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. private payrolls data showed a modest increase in November.

Separately, a survey from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. services sector activity slowed in November after big gains in recent months. The final reading of the S&P services survey was revised lower to 56.1.

"Recent economic data has pretty much confirmed the Fed will cut rates in December," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York.

Friday's jobs report is "like the granddaddy of employment reports this week," he said.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.2-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 367 new highs and 79 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 2,372 stocks rose and 1,930 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.23-to-1 ratio.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 13.06 billion shares, compared with the 14.89 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai and David Gregorio)