Wall Street Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq Comp and DJIA Close at Record Highs on Nvidia and Apple Strength

Jerry Kronenberg wrote a column · Sep 23 04:49

The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and Dow-30 all set record closing highs Monday as key index components Nvidia and Apple both rose strongly.

The $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$ added 157.5 points (0.7%) to an all-time-best 22,788.98 close, while the $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ gained 29.39 ticks (0.4%) to a record 6,693.75 finish. Similarly, the $Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI.US)$ rose 66.27 points (0.1%) to 46,381.54 all-time high.

The three indexes all surpassed previous record-high closes set just last Friday. All three also hit new intraday all-time highs earlier in Monday's session.

Macro

The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Comp all rallied in part on strength for $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ and $Apple (AAPL.US)$, which are significant members of all three indexes.

Nvidia is the largest component of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Comp, while Apple places No. 3 in both indexes. They're also significant Dow-30 components.

Apple rose 4.3% intraday Monday after Wedbush boosted the stock's price target to a Wall Street-high $310 from a previous $270, citing strong initial demand for AAPL's new iPhone 17. Apple had already risen 3.2% last Friday on the iPhone 17's official release.

Meanwhile, NVDA gained 4% Monday after announcing plans to invest as much as $100 billion in artificial-intelligence powerhouse OpenAI. Nvidia also hit an all-time intraday high earlier in the session.

Adding to the market's enthusiasm on Monday, some key Federal Reserve members spoke in favor of at least some further cuts in the central bank's benchmark Federal Funds rate.

The Fed lowered the rate by 25 basis points last week as recent weak U.S. jobs data appeared to outweigh concerns that American inflation remains above the central bank's 2% target.

A lower Fed Funds rate can speed up the economy and boost employment, but also risks making inflation worse.

Still, Wall Street typically likes Fed rate cuts because those tend to lower bond and money-market yields and drive more investor dollars into stocks, potentially boosting equity prices.

Fed Gov. Stephen Miran, whom rate-cut-friendly U.S. President Donald Trump recently appointed to central bank to fill a vacancy, spoke on Monday in favor of lowering the Fed Funds rate much more.

"Monetary policy is well into restrictive territory," Miran said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. "Leaving short-term interest rates roughly two percentage points too tight risks unnecessary layoffs and higher unemployment."

St. Louis Federal Reserve President Alberto Musalem sounded more cautious in a separate speech Monday, but left open the door to some additional rate reductions.

"I believe there is limited room for easing further without policy becoming overly accommodative -- [but] we should tread cautiously," Musalem said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday to the Brookings Institution in Washington.

That said, lowering the Fed funds rates further could weaken the U.S. dollar and risk increased inflation.

Such concerns helped send gold to a new record high Monday. $Gold Futures (DEC5) (GCmain.US)$ rose as much as 2.1% to a 3,783.20 all-time intraday high.

Moo-vers

The "Magnificent Seven" stocks ended Monday mixed despite Wall Street's generally jovial mood during the session.

Three Mag-7 names ended higher – the aforementioned $Apple (AAPL.US)$ (up 4.3%) and $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ (4% better), plus $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ (which added 1.9%).

However, four Mag-7 stocks finished the day weaker. $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ shed 1.7%, while $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ gave up 1.6%, $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ lost 0.9% and $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ finished 0.7% lower.

Beyond the Mag-7, Monday's other noteworthy percentage decliners included:

-- $Quantum Computing (QUBT.US)$, down 13.2%. QUBT -- which soared 26.8% Friday on word of a coming White House plan to boost the U.S. quantum-computing section -- pulled back Monday after announcing a $500 million private placement of new shares. That will likely dilute current stockholders.

-- $Opendoor Technologies (OPEN.US)$, off 12.4%. The homebuying platform and meme stock sank after hedge-fund manager George Noble called the company "total garbage" on social media.

-- $Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR.US)$, down 10.1%. The Ethereum-focused crypto firm fell after it announced the sale of new shares and warrants worth potentially $1.3 billion to an unidentified institutional investor. As with QUBT's move, the sale will presumably dilute existing shareholders. Adding to BMNR's woes, $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ fell 7.1% to $4,146.24 as of shortly after 4 p.m. ET.

Meanwhile, Monday's major percentage gainers included:

-- $Applied Digital (APLD.US)$, up 19.4%. ALPD has risen for 11 sessions on a row, gaining 76% since its Sept. 5 close. The digital-infrastructure firm appears to be rallying on continued enthusiasm for its Aug. 29 announcement of an $11 billion deal with $CoreWeave (CRWV.US)$.

-- $IREN Ltd (IREN.US)$, which gained 8.4%. The crypto-friendly, AI-enabled data-center firm rose on news that it's doubled AI cloud capacity through the purchase of an additional 12.4k GPUs for about $674 million.

-- $Oracle (ORCL.US)$, which added 6.3%. The tech giant ended higher in part on word that it'll become a major investor in TikTok's new U.S. arm under a deal that will allow the Chinese-based social-media giant to avoid a ban from operating in America. ORCL also rose on word that its long-time CEO Safra Catz will move to executive vice chair, replaced by current company presidents Clay Magouyr and Mike Sicilia as co-CEOs.

Wall Street Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq Comp and DJIA Close at Record Highs on Nvidia and Apple Strength

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