(Updates with index/price moves and company news from the first paragraph.)
US equity indexes rose in a broad-based rally as a fall in market expectations for an interest-rate increase this month pushed government bond yields lower.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.3% to 26,555.7, the S&P 500 climbed 1% to 7,740.9, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1.2% to 53,675.5 ahead of Thursday's close. All sectors except energy and materials rose. Communication services, consumer discretionary and financials topped the gainers.
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he would be "inclined to support" holding rates steady at the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting in September if the August inflation print shows progress toward the central bank's 2% goal.
"Yields retreated in reaction to Waller's latest comments," Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel, said in a note. "The relatively quick and notable reaction in the market to the latest Fed commentary suggests investors were already skeptical of the Fed's intentions to move forward with firmer policy as early as later this month."
The probability of the Fed raising its target rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.0% in September slumped to 50% after midday Thursday from 63% a day ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool. The remaining likelihood is that policy will remain on hold.
Treasury yields fell, with the 10-year down 2.6 basis points to 4.77% and the two-year lower by five basis points to 4.34% in the final leg of trading.
In company news, Palantir Technologies (PLTR) and PwC expanded their strategic alliance to help enterprises deploy artificial intelligence tools across critical business operations, PwC said Thursday. Palantir shares jumped 8.1%, the top gainer on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.
Nvidia (NVDA) has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in a blog post.
Snowflake (SNOW) shares soared 18% as the cloud-based data platform lifted its full-year product revenue outlook. Snowflake could see faster revenue growth as business use of AI increases demand for data products, and strong usage and backlog trends combined with wider AI adoption could push growth above current expectations, UBS said in a note.