major stock indexes notched their best day in months thursday thanks to midearnings season optimism fueled by a blockbuster report from facebook parent meta—though the gains were once again largely driven by a handful of megacap stocks the dow jones industrial average jumped 506 points or 15 to 33807 points while the sp 500 and techheavy nasdaq rose 19 and 24 respectively that’s the dow and sp’s largest gain since january 6 and the nasdaq’s best day since february 2 spearheading the rally was meta which gained 14 after reporting strong financial results picking up roughly 75 billion in market value alphabet up 4 amazon up 5 apple up 3 microsoft up 3 and nvidia up 1 each staged rallies fueled by the facebook parent’s hot earnings report those six stocks—the world’s six largest tech companies and eight of the world’s 10 biggest companies—added nearly 320 billion in market capitalization thursday “megacap tech crushed earnings” oanda analyst ed moya wrote thursday google parent alphabet meta and microsoft each beat analyst forecasts for profit and sales during the first quarter of 2023 the 10 largest stocks in the sp account for roughly 30 of the index’s total weight according to jpmorgan analysts led by dubravko lakosbrjas the 96th percentile since 1980 apple and microsoft the world’s largest companies by market cap account for more than 13 of the index’s total weight a record high “narrow leadership in general reflects a less healthy rally than one with broader participation” lpl financial analyst jeffrey buchbinder said in a note to clients earlier this month investor optimism followed the release of a report from the bureau of economic analysis revealing the us economy grew far less than expected during the first quarter with gross domestic product growing just 11 a “recession is incoming” pantheon macro chief economist ian shepherdson warned following the gdp update what to watch for amazon reports earnings after the bell thursday analysts expect the company to post 1246 billion in sales and 021 earnings per share according to factset apple and nvidia will report next month ‘recession incoming’ economic growth slows to 11 as economists worry about worsening conditions in months ahead forbes meta stock surges to 14month high after earnings beat—even as it bleeds billions of dollars in the metaverse forbes