By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 racked up gains Tuesday, as a surge in Alphabet on better-than-expected quarterly results underpinned the ongoing recovery in tech.

It rose 0.7%. The added 0.5% or 166 points to the gain 0.2%.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:) jumped more than 6%, taking its market cap to nearly $2 trillion, after the tech giant’s quarterly results topped Wall Street estimates by a wide margin, powered by strength in its advertising businesses.

“We continue to see Search as growing in importance and becoming stronger, while YouTube and Cloud remain in very early stages with long runways,” Wedbush said in a note as it upgraded its price target on stock to $3,800 from $3,530.

Facebook-parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:) was up more than 1% as Alphabet’s strong advertising growth served as barometer for the social media company’s results, set to be released after the closing bell.

Some on Wall Street, however, suggest that Apple’s privacy changes are likely to have a bigger impact on Facebook than it did on Google as the latter’s monopoly on web search eased the impact. 

In the wake of the stellar quarterly results by Advanced Micro Devices, (NASDAQ:), and the guidance that exceeded Wall Street expectations, the stock prices for chip stocks have pushed tech broader higher.

However, consumer discretionary stocks struggled to turn a positive but were weighed down in part by a 10% slump at Etsy (NASDAQ) and wekaness at eBay (NASDAQ), and Tesla (NASDAQ).

Energy was also slightly lower as oil prices tracked back from session highs after  major oil producers agreed to stick with a plan to increase output by 400,000 barrels per day for March.

Megacap quarterly earnings have helped to shift attention back towards corporate fundamentals and has overshadowed economic data that shows the effect of the micron variant on the labor market.

The unexpectedly low Januaryaury figure fell to 301,000, as compared to December’s revised downwardly revised number of 776,000.

Markets are on track for their fourth consecutive day of gains. The trend is likely to continue, as dip-buying returns. 

“As we look out over the balance of this year, we see good economic growth, decelerating inflation, an improving labor market, and robust corporate earnings growth. That means we want to step in and be buyers when the stock market correct,” Wells Fargo said.