Wall Street closed this Friday with gains and one of its main indicators, the selective S&P 500, set a two-year record after another day driven by the technology sector.
At the end of operations on the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500 rose 1.23% and stood at 4,839.8 units, exceeding by more than 21 points the historical ceiling it reached in January 2022.
“It really is an encouraging day in terms of action, and 4,800 has certainly been a difficult key level to overcome. So if we continue to move in this direction, it’s going to be a very positive confidence sign,” said Lisa Erickson, head of public markets at US Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.05% to 37,864 units, also registering a milestone.
The Nasdaq index was the most benefited of the session, with an advance of 1.70%, up to 15,311 units.
By sectors, the rise of technology companies (2.35%) and especially chip companies such as Qualcomm (4.6%), Broadcom (3.7%), Texas Instruments (2.8%) and Nvidia stood out.
Chip stocks have risen on bullish AI forecasts from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), the world‘s largest contract chipmaker, released on Wednesday.
“It seems that people believe that chip values are the engine that is going to drive the growth of artificial intelligence, not only in terms of computing and processing power, but also to revolutionize business,” said Chris Zaccarelli, of Independent Advisory Alliance.
The financial (1.64%) and communications (1.63%) sectors also progressed, while slight losses were recorded in essential goods (-0.33%) and public services (-0.12%).
Among the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones, the insurer Travelers led the gains (6.8%), which reported better than expected results, more than doubling its profit in the fourth quarter.
Other winners were the technology companies Intel (3%), IBM (2.8%) and Salesforce (2.4%); On the other hand, the worst losses were for UnitedHealth (-2.73%), followed far behind by Walgreens (-0.68%).
In other markets, Texas oil fell to 73.78%; and at the close of the stock market the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond fell 4.126%, gold amounted to 2,031 dollars and the dollar lost value against the euro, with an exchange rate of 1.0893.