On the evening of October 27, the three major US stock indices rose, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average near flat, the Nasdaq surging in intraday trading to gain nearly 1%, and the S&P 500 Index up 0.5%.
At the same time, investors paid close attention to the declining oil prices and digested a series of corporate earnings reports. The Federal Reserve also began its two-day monetary policy meeting that day.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index rose more than 1%.
Looking at the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, it surged more than 2%. AI tech stocks rose broadly. The memory chip sector led the gains, with Western Digital and Dell Technologies surging 7%, and Seagate Technology up more than 6%. Optical communications and semiconductor sectors also rallied strongly, with Broadcom shares rising about 3%.
Previously, a consortium of financial institutions including Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Blackstone announced they would provide US$63 billion in financing for transactions related to Anthropic procuring Broadcom technology. Other chip stocks were also boosted and followed the upward trend. These stocks' latest gains extended the performance from the previous trading day.
On Monday, major US stock indices rose across the board, partly boosted by AI-related stocks. Previously, AI company Anthropic(Temporary Symbol) had submitted a listing application to Nasdaq. This would become another blockbuster tech initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, following SpaceX's highly anticipated listing in June.
Falling oil prices also boosted market sentiment on Tuesday, with investors hopeful that the Middle East conflict may cool down. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell nearly 1% to around US$101 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent crude futures dropped about 1% to around US$114 per barrel.
The Federal Reserve will begin its latest round of monetary policy meeting on Tuesday. Although the market widely expects the Fed to keep interest rates unchanged, traders will still closely watch for signals to determine whether the Fed will raise rates again before the end of the year. Thomas Block, a Washington policy strategist at Fundstrat, said: "If everything goes as expected and the Fed keeps rates unchanged this time, then after the fluctuations in votes at the past two meetings, it will still be interesting to observe the voting results of this meeting. Although the Fed believes it transcends partisan politics, the possibility of adjusting interest rates a week before the national election is unlikely."
In addition, according to people familiar with the matter, Meta's expanded US$25 billion stock offering attracted demand about five times the number of shares available for subscription. The company hopes to raise a total of US$98 billion through a series of financing arrangements for AI spending. The people said that more than half of the shares in the common stock offering were allocated to long-term holders and existing shareholders. The top 15 investors by subscription size received about 70% of the offered shares in total. This stock offering is only part of Meta's overall financing plan, which also includes the issuance of US$12.5 billion in mandatory convertible preferred stock and an expected at-the-market offering program. If the final financing scale reaches US$98 billion, it would become one of the largest equity financing plans in history. Meta has committed that the newly raised funds will be used for AI infrastructure construction and its personal superintelligence business. The people also said that Meta's mandatory convertible preferred stock issuance also received several times over-subscription.
On the economic data front, US consumer confidence unexpectedly rebounded in October, the first rebound after four consecutive months of decline, mainly driven by improved assessments of the job market and business environment. Although consumer confidence rebounded this month, rising prices continued to pressure household budgets, and wage growth continued to lag behind inflation. In addition, recent borrowing costs have risen again, making housing, cars, and other major consumer goods even less affordable.
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