STORY: All three of Wall Street's main indexes notched record closing highs on Wednesday, thanks to upbeat results from Salesforce and comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The Dow added about seven-tenths of a percent, the S&P 500 rose six-tenths and the Nasdaq climbed 1.3%.

Speaking at a New York Times event, Powell said the economy looked strong and that inflation was continuing to moderate.

Investors expect a third consecutive interest-rate cut at the central bank's policy meeting later this month.

In earnings news, tech took center stage as Salesforce jumped 11% to hit an all-time high a day after beating analyst estimates for third-quarter revenue. Other cloud companies also advanced.

And Marvell Technology rallied 23% and also hit a record high after the chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue above analyst estimates.

Liz Miller, president of Summit Place Financial Advisors, said Marvell may be emerging as a player in the AI space.

"With Marvell it's still a little bit of waiting to be seen, but there was some good announcements in the earnings report and an expectation of their participation in the AI market and how they might have [a] product that's very desirable there. Investors are certainly looking for the next NVIDIA or any other chip product company that may be playing in a similar space."

Speaking of which, Nvidia gained 3.5%, leading gains among the megacap growth stocks.

Earlier on Wednesday, a report showed that private payrolls rose modestly in November.

Investors now await weekly jobless claims data on Thursday and the monthly nonfarm payrolls report on Friday.