October 29, U.S. stocks closed modestly higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing 0.19% to a record-high 52,475.10, the S&P 500 adding 0.28% to 7,743.98, and the Nasdaq Composite rising 0.27% to 26,549.85 as a sharp rebound in semiconductor shares buoyed market sentiment. Investors looked past lingering concerns about higher-for-longer interest rates, focusing instead on signs of strengthening demand for advanced chips used in artificial-intelligence and data-center applications.
Chip names dominated the leaderboard. Vertiv (VRT) soars 16.48% after lifting its full-year sales outlook on robust data-center orders, while South Korea’s SK Hynix (SKHY) jumps 13.30% on record high-bandwidth memory shipments. Oracle (ORCL) rallies 10.73% on a multi-year AI cloud deal, and SanDisk (SNDK) gains 7.66% amid takeover speculation. Micron Technology (MU) advances 5.86% following an analyst upgrade, and Lam Research (LRCX) adds 5.39% on bullish wafer-equipment forecasts. On the downside, Nvidia (NVDA) slips 1.17% as traders bank recent profits, Apple (AAPL) falls 0.94% ahead of next week’s product launch, and Tesla (TSLA) eases 0.80% as margin worries linger.
Broader tech-focused plays were also active. Leveraged chip ETF SOXL gains 6.20%, while ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) rises 1.86%. Silicon Motion (SIMO) jumps 7.56% after settling a patent dispute, and optical-network specialist Lumentum (LITE) climbs 5.52%. Clean-energy firm Bloom Energy (BE) advances 4.38%, but Taiwan’s United Microelectronics (UMC) falls 3.24% and China’s PDD Holdings (PDD) slips 1.19% as traders rotate out of select foreign ADRs.
Comments