US STOCKS-Wall St gains on megacap boost ahead of Fed rate verdict
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McDonald's rises after beating Q3 estimates
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Western Digital jumps on plan to separate into two cos
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Onsemi slips on dour Q4 rev forecast
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Fed meet, jobs data in focus this week
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Indexes up: Dow 0.88%, S&P 0.50%, Nasdaq 0.56%
(Updated at 11:28 a.m. ET/1528 GMT)
By Amruta Khandekar and Shashwat Chauhan
Oct 30 (Reuters) -
Wall Street's main indexes rose on Monday, boosted by megacap growth stocks ahead of a busy week of earnings and interest rate decisions from major central banks, including the Federal Reserve.
Amazon.com, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta Platforms, which reported earnings last week, rose between 1% and 2.6%.
The communication services index jumped 1.8%, leading the advance among major S&P 500 sectors.
Aiding gains,
McDonald's
rose 1.8% after beating estimates for third-quarter profit and sales.
"Last week, it (the market) was so down because the earnings especially on those big tech companies were not as good as expected," said Joe Saluzzi, partner and co-founder at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.
"In lack of any negative news, they (markets) decided to finally bounce."
Analysts now expect aggregate annual S&P earnings growth of 4.3%, bigger than the 1.6% increase seen at the beginning of October, according to LSEG data.
Apple, Pfizer and Eli Lilly would be some of the major Wall Street companies reporting later in the week.
Tesla was the only major growth name in the red, down 4.5%.
The Fed is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged at the end of its policy meeting on Nov. 1, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, but concerns linger that interest rates could stay higher for longer in the face of a resilient U.S. economy.
The October non-farm payrolls report due on Friday will provide further cues on the interest rate path.
The Bank of England and the Bank of Japan would also be announcing rate decisions this week, with the latter set to consider a
further adjustment
to its yield curve control (YCC) framework, per a Nikkei report.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops and tanks
attacked
Gaza's main northern city from the east and west on Monday.
"Because the offensive is not as big as everyone expected, on the margin this is good news for markets," said Anthi Tsouvali, multi-asset strategist at State Street Global Markets.
Geopolitical concerns as well as a surge in Treasury yields have dragged the benchmark S&P 500 around 10% from its intraday high in July.
At 11:28 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 286.36 points, or 0.88%, at 32,703.95, the S&P 500 was up 20.47 points, or 0.50%, at 4,137.84, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 71.25 points, or 0.56%, at 12,714.26.
The U.S. Treasury is likely to boost the size of auctions for bills, notes, and bonds in the fourth quarter when it announces its financing plans this week to fund a worsening budget deficit. Among other major movers, Western Digital Corp jumped 6.7% as the memory chipmaker disclosed plans to separate itself into two independent public companies.
Onsemi sank 18.5% on a downbeat fourth-quarter forecast.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.62-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.37-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded no new 52-week high and 44 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 10 new highs and 262 new lows.
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
