Wall Street ended sharply higher on Monday, fueled by gains in AI-related stocks, with Meta Platforms climbing after a report that it is preparing for sweeping layoffs, while oil prices retreated amid ongoing uncertainty about the Middle East conflict. Meta < META.O> jumped 2.3% after Reuters reported that the social media platform plans to shrink its workforce by at least 20% to offset costly artificial-intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.
Nvidia NVDA.O ended 1.6% higher after CEO Jensen Huang announced new components at the chipmaker’s annual developer conference. Taiwan’s Foxconn < 2317.TW>, which makes AI servers using Nvidia chips, issued a strong quarterly revenue forecast on Monday. Tesla < TSLA.O> rose 1.1% after CEO Elon Musk said the company’s Terafab project to make AI chips will launch in seven days. Micron Technology MU.O jumped 3.7% after the memory chipmaker announced plans for a second manufacturing facility in Taiwan.
A modest drop in crude prices after the U.S. said it would be “fine” with some Iranian, Indian and Chinese ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz also offered some relief to the market. Higher energy prices are likely to feature prominently in central bank meetings globally this week. The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday. Traders have pushed back their expectations for an interest rate cut of at least 25 basis points beyond October, according to LSEG-compiled data, compared with their previous expectation of a cut in July.
The S&P 500 climbed 1.01% to end the session at 6,699.38 points, its strongest one-day gain in over a month. The Nasdaq gained 1.22% to 22,374.18 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.83% to 46,946.41 points. All of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by information technology .SPLRCT .SPLRCT , up 1.39%, followed by a 1.34% gain in consumer discretionary .SPLRCD .SPLRCD. Wall Street’s fear gauge, the CBOE volatility index .VIX .VIX , dropped 3.5 points to 23.7, while the rate-sensitive Russell 2000 index .RUT .RUT gained 0.94%.
Despite logging declines over the past three weeks, U.S. equities have fared better than global peers, buoyed by a rebound in beaten-down technology stocks and as the country is a net oil exporter. However, the S&P 500 remains dow n about 2% so far in 2026.February industrial production increased 0.2%, slightly better than expectations of a 0.1% rise. Travel stocks Delta Air Lines DAL.N DAL.N and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings NCLH.N NCLH.N rose 3.5% and 5.1%, respectively, lifted by lower oil prices.
Crypto stock Strategy Inc MSTR.O MSTR.O climbed 5.6% as bitcoin BTC= rallied around 3%. Discount retailer DLTR.O DLTR.O rose 6.4% after signaling it could benefit from favorable tariffs in the near term. Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 .AD.SPX .AD.SPX by a 3.1-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted 16 new highs and 10 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 51 new highs and 138 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 17.4 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 19.9 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
Reporting by Johann M Cherian, Utkarsh Tushar Hathi in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Maju Samuel, Shinjini Ganguli and Aurora Ellis.
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