Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages trade on their highs going into the home stretch of today's abbreviated session. The S&P 500 (+0.8%) has extended this week's gain to 1.7% while the Russell 2000 (+0.9%) is up 3.3% for the week.

The technology sector (+1.4%) has maintained its lead going into the last 30 minutes of action with chip design names Cadence Design (CDNS 327.44, +16.49, +5.30%) and Synopsys (SNPS 550.32, +27.21, +5.20%) benefiting from news that restrictions on sales of chip design software to China have been removed.

Elsewhere in technology, Datadog (DDOG 154.38, +19.37, +14.35%) has soared to its best level since mid-December after it was revealed that the stock will be added to the S&P 500 ahead of Wednesday's open, replacing Juniper Networks, which no longer trades since it has been acquired by HP Enterprise (HPE 21.40, +0.14, +0.68%).