The stock market bounced back from hefty losses on Wednesday, with all Wall Street indices finishing in the green territory after President Donald Trump announced that the US would pause the imposition of higher tariffs on 75 countries for 90 days.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that more than 75 countries have called to negotiate and have not retaliated in any way.
“I have authorized a 90-day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” he noted.
Following the announcement, the Dow Jones jumped by 7.87 percent, the S&P 500 surged by 9.52 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq soared by 12.16 percent.
Indices aside, 10 companies led the charge, predominantly those with a high international trade exposure.
In this article, we listed Wednesday’s 10 best-performing stocks and detailed the reasons behind their gains.
To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.
A trader cheers his market gains. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
10. IonQ Inc. (NYSE:IONQ)
Shares of IonQ Inc. soared by 23.92 percent on Wednesday to end at $26.37 apiece as investors cheered announcements that it was one of the companies tapped by the Department of Defense to explore the possibility of building a useful quantum computer that can achieve utility-scale operation.
Under the program, IONQ and its 14 counterparts will work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to scale their technology toward creating a utility-scale quantum computer.
According to DARPA QBI program manager Joe Altepeter, the companies will provide “comprehensive technical details of their concepts to show that they hold water and could plausibly lead to a transformative, fault-tolerant quantum computer in under 10 years.”
Companies that successfully complete the first stage will move to a yearlong stage B, during which DARPA will analyze their research and development approach.
A final stage will follow, where the QBI independent verification and validation (IV&V) team will test the firms’ computer hardware.
9. ARM Holdings Plc (NASDAQ:ARM)
ARM Holdings soared by 24.20 percent on Wednesday to end at $106.59 apiece as investor sentiment was buoyed by President Donald Trump’s decision to pause from levying taxes on US imports for 90 days.
The move was beneficial for ARM, which designs and licenses intellectual properties (IP) for microprocessors and related technologies, as it would help provide short-term stability to the semiconductor market and smooth out any pricing pressures and operational challenges from the tariffs.
In other news, ARM was reportedly eyeing UK-based Alphaware for acquisition in a bid to secure a crucial technology for building its artificial intelligence processors but later axed the plan after initial discussions.
According to a report by Reuters, Alphawave, a supplier of semiconductor IPs, has been working with investment bankers to explore a sale after receiving an acquisition bid from ARM and other potential buyers.
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