The U.S. stock market’s Wednesday session is a historic one, as both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 indices closed at record high levels, driven by increased investor confidence in artificial intelligence-driven growth expanding from the tech sector to the broader market.
The S&P 500 Index, as tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, closed the session 5,354 points, surpassing the latest all-time high close hit of 5,321 points hit on May 21.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index, as monitored through the Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ, closed at a record high of 19,035 points, up 2% for day, notching its best daily performance in a month.
Chart: Nasdaq 100 Hits Record Highs, Up 35% Since October 2023 Lows
The group of the so-called Magnificent Seven – Microsoft Corp. MSFT, Apple Inc. AAPL, Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL, Amazon Inc. AMZN, Meta Platforms Inc. META, NVIDIA Corp. NVDA and Tesla, Inc. TSLA – achieved a combined market valuation of $15 trillion, nearly half of the size of the remaining S&P 500 companies.
Notably, Nvidia surpassed a $3-trillion valuation, overtaking Apple to become the second most valuable U.S. company.
| Market Cap | |
| Microsoft Corporation | $ 3,148.18B |
| NVIDIA Corporation | $ 3,007.19B |
| Apple Inc. | $ 3,003.26B |
| Alphabet Inc. | $ 2,177.62B |
| Amazon.com, Inc. | $ 1,886.31B |
| Meta Platforms, Inc. | $ 1,255.69B |
| Tesla, Inc. | $ 558.19B |
| MAGNIFICENT 7 TOTAL | $ 15,033.36B |
Encouraging sentiment in the services sector, as gauged by the ISM Services PMI data Wednesday, indicates the American economy continues to grow at a strong pace, alleviating some fears of a slowdown that had emerged in recent sessions.
In the labor market, Wednesday’s ADP report revealed lower-than-expected employment growth but also showed stalling wage growth, which helps keep inflation fears in check ahead of the highly awaited Friday jobs report.
Small caps also joined Wednesday’s rally, with the iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM up 1.5%.
Chipmakers were the best-performing industry, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF SMH up 4.9%, achieving the second-strongest daily performance year-to-date.
Nasdaq 100: Top 5 Gainers On Wednesday
| Name | Last | 1-day Chg % |
| Broadcom Inc. AVGO | 1,412.95 | 6.17% |
| NVIDIA Corporation | 1,223.93 | 5.12% |
| Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD | 166.16 | 3.86% |
| Meta Platforms, Inc. | 494.80 | 3.73% |
| QUALCOMM Inc. QCOM | 211.87 | 3.67% |
S&P 500: Top 5 Gainers On Wednesday
| Name | Last | 1-day Chg % |
| Hewlett Packard Enterprises Inc. HPE | 19.48 | 10.65% |
| Moderna, Inc. MRNA | 154.85 | 6.54% |
| Broadcom Inc. | 1,413.73 | 6.23% |
| Micron Technology, Inc. MU | 133.73 | 5.60% |
| Lam Research Corp. LRCX | 971.78 | 5.32% |
Illustration created using artificial intelligence via MidJourney.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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