Better than expected quarterly results from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) sent major stock indexes to fresh 18-month highs on Wednesday, as stocks continued their year-long recovery from the worst bear market since the 1930s.
Intel’s strong results sent the S&P 500 above 1200 for the first time since Sept. 2008 and extended the Dow’s recovery above the 11,000 level.
The Nasdaq has now nearly doubled since the March 2009 stock market bottom.
Intel gained 3.3 percent on the day, while a long list of tech stocks fared even better, among them Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Micron (NASDAQ: MU), Seagate (NASDAQ: STX), Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) and Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT).
Kulicke and Soffa (NASDAQ: KLIC) soared 19 percent on its results, and the entire chip sector gained more than 4 percent.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) will report their quarterly results after the close on Thursday. Analysts are looking for 21 percent sales growth from Google, and 30 percent from AMD.