A Facebook rally pushed shares of the social media company to a record on Wednesday. Facebook rose as much as 6% to US$230.33, extending a winning streak to the fifth consecutive day.

Facebook’s previous closing high was on 29 January 29 at $223.23. The stock has now gained 11% for the year and 56% since 16 March.

Investors have embraced big technology companies with strong balance sheets and revenue growth amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After a first-quarter selloff on fears of a decline in digital advertising, Facebook offered reassurances in late April with better-than-expected sales in the first quarter, and comments about stabilisation in the first few weeks of the second quarter. The latest optimism came from e-commerce updates Facebook unveiled on Tuesday, which analysts expect will help accelerate revenue growth.

Amazon.com, which has seen demand surge from home-bound customers, also briefly rose to a record on Wednesday with a gain of 1.7%.

As of Wednesday’s US market close, Facebook had a market capitalisation of $655-billion; Amazon’s was nearly $1.25-trillion. — Reported by Jeran Wittenstein, (c) 2020 Bloomberg LP, with additional reporting (c) 2020 NewsCentral Media