The technology-heavy Nasdaq outperformed peers at the close of trade on Thursday after chip maker Nvidia’s bumper revenue forecast reaffirmed the strength of the AI boom and fueled gains in technology stocks. Nvidia NVDA.O NVDA.O shares jumped 8.7% after the chip company’s robust forecast met lofty investor expectations, bolstering the view that the tech rally still has room to run as companies at the heart of AI buildout continue to deliver impressive growth. Nvidia has warned that shortages of memory components could curb the pace of the industry’s growth.
The S&P 500 .SPX .SPX closed 55.29 points, or 0.72%, higher at 7,730.99 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC .IXIC gained 411.16 points, or 1.57%, to 26,541.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI .DJI rose 105.56 points, or 0.20%, to 53,569.44. U.S. chip-linked stocks broadly rose, with the semiconductor index .SOX .SOX notching a 2.3% gain. The S&P 500 Information Technology sector .SPLRCT .SPLRCT rose 3.4%, making it the best gainer among the S&P 500’s 11 constituents, which were mostly in the red.
Brent crude prices jumped by more than $2 per barrel on Thursday, after a Wall Street Journal report that said U.S. President Donald Trump is not interested in returning to terms of a memorandum of understanding reached with Iran in June.
Salesforce CRM.N CRM.N surged 22.6% after raising annual revenue and profit forecasts, and rolling out a new plug-in integrated with Anthropic’s Claude AI models. CrowdStrike CRWD.O CRWD.O climbed 20.5% after the cybersecurity software provider raised its annual revenue forecast and topped second-quarter earnings estimates. The Salesforce and CrowdStrike reports calmed worries that advanced AI tools could upend the traditional software industry, boosting investor appetite for beaten-down software stocks and narrowing the gap with semiconductors, which are seen as the primary beneficiaries of the AI boom. Shares of other software firms, including ServiceNow NOW.O and Palo Alto Networks PANW.O PANW.O , also surged.
Moderna MRNA.O MRNA.O dropped 4.6% after unveiling a $2 billion convertible bond sale, while HP HPQ.N HPQ.N fell almost 3% after shipments and margins of its PC unit declined in the third quarter.
With Nvidia results out, investor attention turns to Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s first Jackson Hole address on Friday for hints on the central bank’s stance on the latest inflation data and the U.S. Treasury’s efforts to tame yields. A hotter-than-expected Personal Consumption Expenditures reading on Wednesday muddied the policy outlook, dampening some of the optimism generated by a benign consumer inflation report earlier this month. Two Fed officials shared their ongoing concerns about the inflation outlook on Thursday, reiterating their stance on rate hikes to combat price pressures.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits for the first time fell for a second week, while the overall number slid to the lowest in a month, signaling a stable labor market. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.02-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange. There were 192 new highs and 82 new lows on the NYSE. On the Nasdaq, 2,570 stocks rose and 2,325 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.11-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 15 new 52-week highs and 8 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 73 new highs and 85 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 14.9 billion shares, compared with the 160.3 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
Reporting by Saeed Azhar in New York and Purvi Agarwal, Niket Nishant and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Matthew Lewis.
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