Nasdaq climbs as US chip and AI-linked stocks bounce back

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite led Wall Street with a 1% increase on October 19 as investors turned their attention back to the chip sector and AI-related stocks following a significant decline the previous week. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had reported their largest weekly drops since late June on October 16, driven by concerns over the financing of AI infrastructure amidst rising interest rates.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rebounded from an eight-day losing streak, with the index falling around 15.7% during the longest run of declines since October 2008. Michael James, a managing director and equity sales trader at Rosenblatt Securities, suggested that a bounce was due as negative sentiment turned into oversold conditions.

Major technology companies like Meta, Tesla, and SpaceX reported results in the coming days and weeks, but James cautioned that the market had not yet recovered from the recent downturn. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.07%, the S&P 500 gained 0.41%, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.11% on October 19. Energy markets reduced earlier support as oil prices fluctuated, but the market's advance was largely driven by heavyweight stocks.

Seven of the 11 major industry sectors closed lower, with consumer discretionary showing a 2.7% increase and technology rising by 1.2%. Utilities and real estate were the biggest losers among the sectors. The biggest contributors to the consumer sector were Amazon, which rose 5% after Morgan Stanley named it its "top pick," and Tesla, which gained 3.8%.

CoreWeave, a cloud computing provider, was at the center of last week's sell-off due to concerns over its $50 billion debt load, while Intel's shares rose 2.4% after J.P. Morgan upgraded the stock to "neutral."