US tech stocks hit record highs Thursday as Facebook changes name to Meta

Facebook, whose products also include the applications Instagram and WhatsApp and the virtual reality brand Oculus, announced that it was changing its holding company's name to Meta.

The announcement was made at Facebook's virtual reality conference, where the company showcased a preview of its ambitions to build out the so-called metaverse overlapping virtual and augmented realities.

More importantly, the rebranding came amid a regulatory probe and challenges to Facebook's image after whistleblower Frances Haugen exposed toxic business practices and the negative impact, particularly from Instagram, on young girls.

Wall Street's tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index closed the day up 1.4 per cent at 15,448, after hitting a record high of 15,452.

Facebook itself ended up 1.5 per cent at US$316.89 a share, after peaking at 325.35 earlier.

Nasdaq aside, other major US stock indexes also rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a blue-chip index which groups mostly industrial stocks, closed up 0.7 per cent at 35,730. It hit a record high of 35,893 on Tuesday.

The stocks rally on Thursday came despite the Commerce Department reporting that US Gross Domestic Product expanded by just 2.0 per cent in the third quarter of 2021, well below the second quarter's 6.7 per cent, due to challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

"US stocks continue to rise as the economy shows it was able to take the Delta variant hit in the third quarter," Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, said.

A slew of US corporations from banking to healthcare, auto, technology and entertainment reported blockbuster earnings in the third quarter.

But some major names in Big Tech, including Amazon and Apple, missed earnings forecasts for the quarter due to COVID-19-related challenges.