Facebook leads technology stock rally as US indexes rise

US stocks are rising this morning as Facebook leads a big rally for technology companies. The social media network jumped after its recent data privacy scandal didn't appear to affect its business in the first quarter.

Other big technology companies also moved higher. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ford and Visa also rose after they gave strong first-quarter reports.

The S&P 500 index rose 12 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 2,652 as of 10 a.m. Eastern time.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 118 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 24,204. The Nasdaq composite advanced 69 points, or 1 per cent, to 7,073. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks added 1 point, or 0.1 per cent, to 1,552.

Facebook surged 7.5 per cent to USD 171.55 after the company's advertisers appeared to shrug off the privacy scandal that has surrounded the company.

The company said its revenue jumped 49 percent in the first three months of the year, and there were few signs users or advertisers were abandoning the company since the scandal broke in mid-March.

Facebook has faced a backlash about how it collects and uses data since the revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm linked to the Trump campaign, had gained information on up to 87 million of its users.

Facebook stock is down 7 per cent since then.

Other social media companies also rose. Twitter gained 4.3 per cent to USD 31.03 and Snap picked up 2.6 per cent to USD 14.92. Alphabet, Google's parent company, the only digital publisher larger than Facebook, rose 1.1 per cent to USD 1,033.83.