A fresh rally for technology stocks ahead of a raft of earnings releases in the sector later in the week lifted US equity markets - Dow up +115-points or +0.43% The broader S&P500 gained +0.74%. with Information Technology (up+1.61%), Materials (+1.41%) and Real Estate (+1.12%) all gaining over >1% and leading nine of the eleven primary sectors higher. Utilities (down -1.26%) and Financials (-0.81%) were the only primary sectors to close in the red. The technology-centric NASDAQ rallied +1.67%. The FAANG complex traded higher, with Facebook Inc up +1.21%, Apple Inc +2.37%, Amazon.com Inc +1.54%, Netflix Inc +3.16% and Google-parent Alphabet Inc +1.21%. Facebook announced it has delayed the release of their second quarter result until Thursday (30 July) to allow Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to appear before the rescheduled Congressional hearing on competition in the U.S. technology sector. It means all of Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet will post earnings after the closing bell of Thursday’s (30 July) session.
