NEW YORK — The nation’s leading technology companies provided a surprisingly upbeat assessment of future business conditions Wednesday, helping to propel the stock markets to their highest levels in nearly three years.
The stellar reports from Intel, IBM and a handful of other tech giants provided a burst of optimism about the economic recovery. These companies provide computers, servers and cutting-edge equipment to countless companies that generally make such investments only when they feel ready to expand.
“With the downturn in late 2008 and 2009, a lot of these companies hunkered down and put a Band-Aid on all their infrastructure and said, ‘We’re going to save money,’ ” said Kevin Sellers, Intel’s vice president of investor relations. “Now, things are looking better and they’re spending.”
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.5 percent to 12,453.54, a level not seen since June 2008. The tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped more than 2 percent, and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 1.4 percent.
Silicon Valley has plenty of reasons for optimism. With new, transformative devices such as tablets rapidly catching on with consumers, businesses investing in cloud computing, and proposals to bring high-speed Internet to the farthest reaches of the country, technology spending appears poised to accelerate.
“This is a bright spot in a gloomy economy,” said Michael Yoshikami, founder and chief executive of YCMNet Advisors in Walnut Creek, Calif. “. . . We’re going to see more wireless and more cloud computing, which is going to require companies to spend money.”
With the gains, all three indexes turned positive for the week. Stocks took a steep slide Monday after Standard & Poor’s warned that it might lower its rating on U.S. government debt in the next two years. The Dow lost 140 points.
The tech rally could stretch into today with help from a 95 percent rise in earnings that Apple reported after the market closed.
“The contrast from last week is driving stocks,” Clark Yingst, chief market analyst at investment bank Joseph Gunnar, said, referring to results from Google and Alcoa that didn’t live up to expectations.
