the techrich nasdaq soared early thursday after facebook parent meta platforms posted better results than expected while markets digested the latest round of central bank interest rate hikes meta surged nearly 20 percent after reporting a smaller drop in annual sales than anticipated as the company announced that the number of daily users on facebook hit two billion for the first time the results helped boost shares of apple amazon and google parent alphabet all of which report earnings later thursday about 30 minutes into trading the techheavy nasdaq composite index was up 19 percent at 1204291 the dow jones industrial average dropped 06 percent to 3387741 while the broadbased sp 500 shed 07 percent to 414691 the european central bank raised interest rates again and signaled it would stay the course in its monetary policy tightening while the bank of england hiked rates for a 10th time in a row the moves come on the heels of wednesdays announcement by the federal reserve of a quarterpoint interest rate hike this marked a step down from a series of steeper increases investors cheered the feds decision viewing comments from fed chair jerome powell at a press conference after the decision as less hawkish than expected and suggestive of an imminent policy pivot