Wall Street extended its rally on Wednesday as revived tech strength and the increasing probability of a December interest rate cut from the U.S. Federal Reserve put investors in a buying mood the day before the Thanksgiving holiday.
All three major U.S. stock indexes notched their fourth consecutive daily gains, as investors looked past the worries over inflated tech valuations that dragged all three to losses last week.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 314.67 points, or 0.67%, to 47,427.12, the S&P 500 gained 46.73 points, or 0.69%, to 6,812.61 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 189.10 points, or 0.82%, to 23,214.69.
Market Movers
Nvidia rose 1.4% on Wednesday after dropping 2.6% in the previous session. Shares have taken a battering over the past month, with investors worrying Alphabet could snatch away some of the AI chip maker's market share. Advanced Micro Devices, another leading AI chip maker, gained 3.9%, bouncing back from a 4.2% drop Tuesday. Marvell Technology rose over 5%; ASML, Broadcom both jumped over 3%.
Alphabet was down 1.1%. Coming into Wednesday, shares have surged more than 70% in 2025, on pace for their best year since 2009, which has driven the search-engine provider's valuation to just under $4 trillion. Investors are betting Alphabet can become a dominant player in artificial intelligence due to its Gemini 3 large-language model and tensor processing unit, or TPU, chips.
Oracle shares rose 4% on Wednesday as analysts at Deutsche Bank and HSBC defended the stock following a sharp pullback and mounting investor concerns around the cost and uncertainty of artificial intelligence infrastructure spending.
Apple gained 0.2% to $277.55. The iPhone maker eked out another high, after finishing Tuesday at a record. Shares have edged higher over the past month, with investors looking for havens amid worries about bloated AI valuations.
Dell Technologies climbed 5.8% after the PC maker reported better-than-expected third-quarter results and raised its AI server guidance. Its profit margins held strong despite the rising cost of memory components.
HP Inc. declined 1.4% after the IT company cautioned that skyrocketing prices for memory chips could weigh on its results for the current fiscal year. The warning overshadowed better-than-expected earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter. The company also said it planned to cut up to 10% of its workforce.
Robinhood stock climbed 11% a day after the company unveiled a futures and derivatives exchange offered in collaboration with Susquehanna International Group. The joint venture will expand Robinhood's prediction-market offerings.
U.S.-listed shares of Li Auto were 0.6% higher following mixed third-quarter results. The Chinese electric-vehicle maker reported an unexpected adjusted loss as sales dropped 36% to $3.8 billion, narrowly beating the $3.7 billion Wall Street was expecting.
Deere fell 5.7%. While earnings beat analysts' estimates, Deere told investors to expect fiscal 2026 net income in the range of $4 billion to $4.75 billion, while Wall Street was expecting $5.3 billion.
Autodesk gained 2.4% after the maker of digital design software topped analysts' third-quarter earnings forecasts and raised its outlook.
Nutanix dropped 18% after the cloud computing company met analysts' expectations for its fiscal first quarter but cut its full-year sales outlook, citing a shift in revenue to future periods.
Urban Outfitters surged 14%. The clothing retailer reported better-than-expected earnings Tuesday for the fiscal third quarter, as same-store sales climbed 8%.
Workday tumbled 7.9% after the provider of human resources software posted third-quarter revenue that was in line with expectations. The results failed to reassure investors who were worried about organic growth and encroachment by artificial intelligence.
Zscaler slumped 13%, even though the cybersecurity company reported a profit for its first quarter. Its financial guidance was in line with expectations, and investors unloaded the shares following a rally this year.
Market News
US Economic Activity Little Changed Ahead of Next Fed Meeting, Report Shows
U.S. economic activity was little changed in recent weeks, though employment was weaker in about half of the Federal Reserve's 12 districts and consumer spending declined, the U.S. central bank said on Wednesday, likely reinforcing concerns about the job market as the next interest rate decision nears.
"Economic activity was little changed since the previous report, according to most of the 12 Federal Reserve districts, though two districts noted a modest decline and one reported modest growth," the Fed said in its latest "Beige Book" report, a compendium of survey results, interviews, and other qualitative data from its 12 regional banks.
"Employment declined slightly over the current period with around half of districts noting weaker labor demand," the report said. "Despite an uptick in layoff announcements, more districts reported contacts limiting headcounts using hiring freezes, replacement-only hiring, and attrition than through layoffs."
US Extends Tariff Exclusions on Some Chinese Industrial Goods as Part of Trade Truce
The United States on Wednesday granted a one-year extension of tariff exclusions for some Chinese industrial and medical imports, including equipment for making solar-energy products, as part of a U.S.-China trade truce agreed earlier this month.
President Donald Trump imposed the "Section 301" tariffs in his first term over Beijing's intellectual property practices.
