By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 jumped Thursday, underpinned by strength in tech and upbeat quarterly earnings form the major Wall Street banks.

The index rose 1.6%. It was up 1.5% or 516 points.

Surging semiconductor stocks and positive quarterly earnings, as well as guidance from Taiwan Semiconductor (chip bellwether Taiwan Semiconductor), pushed tech stocks higher.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, NYSE:), reported stronger-than-expected third quarter results and talked up the rising demand for its products after it guided Q4 revenue higher than estimates.

DigiTimes reported that semis sentiment was also improved by the report that suggested that Apple’s components suppliers are not experiencing a drop in order.

This is a stark contrast to a Bloomberg report that suggested Apple may reduce iPhone production for 2021.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ;), Marvell Technology(NASDAQ:), and ASML were also up, pushing the iShares SemiconductorETF (NASDAQ) up almost 3%.

Aside from a lift from semis tech was supported also by a fall of Treasury yields. As the 10-year yields continued to decline further, they remained below 1.6%.

Apple (NASDAQ) (Google-parent Alphabet [NASDAQ]), Facebook (NASDAQ) (NASDAQ) (NASDAQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ) (NASDAQ) were all higher than 1%.

The glory of spectacular quarterly Wall Street bank results was a boon for financials.

Bank of America (NYSE -) Wells Fargo (NYSE:) Morgan Stanley (NYSE.) Citigroup (NYSE) All reported an improvement in the top- and bottom-line numbers.

Bank of America was the leader, rising more than 3 percent after it reported record asset management and advisory fees in Q3.

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, (NYSE:), another major Dow Jones component reported stronger-than-expected quarterly performance, thanks to a surge in revenues at Optum’s drug benefits division.  Shares rose more than 2%.

The data that showed a decrease in inflation and jobless claims, which fell to below 300,000, helped the sentiment towards the larger market.  

fell by 36,000 to 293,000 for the week ended October 9, below economists; forecast  for a fall to 320,000.

The rose 0.5%, slower than the 0.6% rise expected, but Pantheon Macroeconomics said it is “too soon to know if this marks the end of the surge in prices triggered by the chip shortage.”