Wall Street Today | S&P, Dow Hit New Records as AI Fervor Fuel Rally in Meta, Nvidia, Chipmakers

The $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ and the $Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US)$ climbed to their all-time highs,  amid investor excitement over artificial intelligence that has sustained the rally in tech stocks, led by the Magnificent Seven.

Large cap benchmark S&P 500 gained 1.2% to close at 4,839.81. The Dow gained 1.1% to 37,863.8, while the tech heavy $Nasdaq Composite Index(.IXIC.US)$ advanced 1.7% to finish at 15,310.97.

$Meta Platforms(META.US)$, one of the seven tech giants, also surpassed its previous peak, ending Friday at $383.45 after founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said his company is "building massive compute infrastructure" to support his long-term vision for general intelligence. Its supplier $NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$, another stock from that magnificent group, advanced, boosting its gains over the past year to more than 250%.

The rest of the seven - $Apple(AAPL.US)$, $Alphabet-A(GOOGL.US)$, $Microsoft(MSFT.US)$, $Amazon(AMZN.US)$ and $Tesla(TSLA.US)$ - closed higher.

Stocks rose even as  investors pare bets that interest rate could start declining by March.

$Meta Platforms(META.US)$ shares closed at a new record after Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg posted an update on the company's artificial intelligence build, investing in $NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$'s most powerful AI chip.  Shares advanced 2% to $383.45, surpassing the previous record high posted in 2021. Nvidia led semiconductor stocks higher.  

$Apple(AAPL.US)$ shares rose as long delivery times were quoted for the company's mixed-reality headset Vision Pro headset when preorders were opened Friday, fueling speculation that demand could outpace supply. Orders placed Friday won't be delivered until Feb. 2 at the earliest, MarketWatch reported. Those that missed the earlier batch of orders likely won't get their headsets until March, according to the report.

Apple shares extended their gains from Thursday which was fueled by an analyst upgrade on the stock.

IRobot's EU Woes
$iRobot(IRBT.US)$  plunged 27% Friday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the European Union plans to block the purchase of the Roomba maker by $Amazon(AMZN.US)$.