Micron rose 2%, while other chipmakers also rose, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index rising 1.1%.“You had a pretty quick pullback in a lot of names and now all of a sudden that’s seen as a buying opportunity and that trend will continue because you have really strong gains,” said Hank Smith, director and head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust.
“I don’t think it compares to the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, when a lot of those companies lost their revenue.”
Nvidia has told Chinese customers that it plans to start shipping its second-most powerful AI chips to China before the New Year holidays in mid-February, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The chipmaker was last 1.2% higher.
Tesla rose 2.7% to a record high after CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package was reinstated by the Delaware Supreme Court. December is traditionally a strong period for the stock markets. According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the so-called Santa Claus rally since 1950 has been reflected in the S&P 500 rising an average of 1.3% during the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading days of January.
This year, that period starts on Wednesday and runs until January 5.
Optimism around AI, a resilient US economy and monetary policy easing have put the three major indexes on track for a third straight year of gains, with the S&P 500 up more than 15%.
At 9:36 a.m. Dutch time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 180.3 points, or 0.37%, to 48,315.1. The S&P 500 gained 28.87 points, or 0.42%, to 6,863.4, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 96.7 points, or 0.41%, to 23,404.3.
Eight of 11 S&P sectors were higher, with the commodities and energy sectors leading gainers as commodity prices rose. The information technology sector added 0.3%.
Wall Street’s fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index, also hit its lowest level since September.
Trading volumes are expected to remain light this week, with the US stock market closing at 1:00 PM ET on Wednesday and closed on Thursday for the Christmas holiday.
But key economic data, including preliminary third-quarter GDP figures, December consumer confidence data and weekly unemployment figures, will be released this week.
Among other drivers, Warner Bros Discovery rose 4% after Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison agreed to provide a personal guarantee of $40.4 billion of the equity financing for Paramount Skydance’s bid to acquire the company. Paramount shares rose 5.1%.
Clearwater Analytics Holdings rose 8.4% after a group of private equity firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus struck a deal to acquire the investment and accounting software maker for about $8.4 billion, including debt.
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