The technology-heavy Nasdaq US stock index rose sharply on Tuesday, closing near its all-time high, which it hit on July 11.
The strong performance by the Nasdaq came as technology stocks had a mixed session as investors digested new data showing job openings at their lowest levels since January 2021, amid a fresh wave of earnings, led by Google-owner Alphabet among a number of tech giants after the market closed.
Ahead of Alphabet's earnings, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed Tuesday near its July high, with the Nasdaq jumping 0.98% to 20,550.65 points at the close, nearing its peak of 20,690.97 points.
The Nasdaq's gains were supported by Broadcom shares, which rose more than 4% after reports that it plans to work with Microsoft (MSFT)-backed artificial intelligence startup OpenAI to develop a new artificial intelligence chip.
The benchmark S&P 500 index followed the Nasdaq, rising about 0.16% to 5,832.91 points after initially opening lower, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the only major index to close in the red, falling about 0.36%, or just over 154.5 points, to 42,233.05.
Before the bell, Nasdaq-listed McDonald's (MCD), PayPal and Pfizer reported their third-quarter earnings, while AMD, Chipotle, Visa and Alphabet reported after the market closed.
This came after new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday showed that the number of job openings at the end of September reached 7.44 million, after recording 7.86 million jobs in August, following a downward revision from 8.04 million jobs.
Investors were closely watching for signs of further slowdown in the labor market ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's next interest rate decision on Nov. 7, with the rest of the labor market and personal consumption expenditures inflation data due later in the week.
