Shares of big tech stocks Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) all moved significantly higher today, rocketing 6.2%, 6.6%, and 5.5%, respectively, as of 12:33 p.m. ET.

Those are massive moves for companies that big, but today was no ordinary day. After basically a year of negative surprises in the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) releases, with some exceptions, today's CPI print was lower than expected, fueling hopes of a Federal Reserve pause on its aggressive interest rate hikes.

These tech giants are each at least partially exposed to the troubled PC sector, which has been one of the hardest-hit areas of tech. While enterprise spending on cloud and servers has been hanging in, the prospect of more interest rate hikes or recession had led to fears another shoe was to drop. So today's print was especially positive, given that the sooner inflation declines, the sooner the Fed can stop hiking interest rates, and the greater the possibility of avoiding a recession. 

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Source Fool.com