Dow Jumps Over 300 Points as Fear Index Remains in 'Fear' Zone
The Dow Jones index surged almost 300 points on Wednesday, as investor sentiment improved ahead of the upcoming jobs report. The CNN Money Fear and Greed Index showed a slight increase in overall market sentiment, but remained in the 'Fear' zone with a reading of 33.
U.S. stocks settled higher across the board, with the Dow Jones closing at 53,061.95. The S&P 500 gained 0.46% to 7,666.60, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.45% to 26,217.83.
NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) led the charge, surging 3.2% on reports it is in advanced talks to acquire Hugging Face for $14 billion. Other notable gainers included Gitlab Inc (NASDAQ:GTLB), which jumped 10% after reporting better-than-expected second-quarter financial results, and Dell Technologies Inc (NYSE:DELL), which gained around 16% with its own strong earnings report.
The market's positive sentiment was somewhat tempered by the weak ADP private payrolls data, which showed a rise of just 38,000 in August - below the consensus estimate of 47,000. The jobs report for August is due out on Friday.