Stocks Rally With Google, Tesla At The Helm, But Rising Oil Prices Spark Inflation Fears: What's Driving Markets Monday?

Wall Street started the new week on a strong footing, as all major U.S. indices displayed gains during midday trading on Monday, highlighting investor confidence in the continued growth of AI-driven stocks.

The S&P 500 surged by almost 1%, while the tech-skewed Nasdaq 100 staged an even stronger rebound, climbing 1.3% beyond the 18,000-point mark. Blue-chip stocks saw a modest uptick of 0.4%, while small-cap stocks experienced a slight dip.

The major highlight of the day centered around the prospective AI agreement between Alphabet Inc. GOOGL and Apple Inc. AAPL, with further details provided in this article.

Investors are eagerly anticipating the market-shaping event of Nvidia Corp.’s NVDA annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2024) on Monday. The majority of analysts and industry observers anticipate the company to unveil insights into its highly anticipated next-generation AI chip.

Meanwhile, Treasury yields continued their upward trajectory, with the 10-year note surpassing 4.33%, poised to conclude the day at its highest levels since late November 2023.

Oil prices maintained their robust market momentum, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude climbing by 1.4% to nearly $82 per barrel.

Bitcoin BTC/USD was 2% lower to $67,000, while gold inched 0.2% higher to $2,160/oz.

Monday’s Performance In Major US Indices, ETFs

Major Indices	Price	1-Day Chg%
Nasdaq 100	18,037.86	1.3%
S&P 500	5,165.42	0.9%
Dow Jones	38,906.01	0.5%
Russell 2000	2,044.23	-0.1%

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was 0.8% higher to $513.59, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA rose 0.4% to $388.30, while the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ rallied 1% to $438.11, according to Benzinga Pro data. 

Sector-wise, the Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund XLC , was the top performer for the day, up 1.8%, while the Real Estate Sector SPDR Fund XLRE was the laggard, down 0.2%.

Monday’s Stock Movers

• Tesla Inc. TSLA rose nearly 6%, marking the best performance in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 for the day, after the EV company announced price hikes for its Model Y in the U.S. and Europe.
• PepsiCo Inc. PEP rose over 4%, on track for the strongest daily performance since April 2020, following a bullish note from Morgan Stanley analysts predicting rising sales this year.
• HashiCorp Inc. HCP rose over 6% on reports that the company is considering a sale.
• Science Applications International Corp. SAIC fell nearly 10% after missing earnings forecasts.
• Shift4 Payments Inc. FOUR fell 9% after its CEO said that buyout bids inadequately valued the company.
• Companies expected to report earnings after market close include Embraer S.A. ERJ and StoneCo Ltd. STNE.

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Image created using artificial intelligence with Midjourney.