Blockbuster chipmaker earnings from around the globe are giving US tech stocks a boost
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- Tech stocks rallied on Wednesday as investors took in good news in the chips sector.
- China gave the green light for Nvidia to sell chips, & strong earnings also boosted the sector.
- Investors are awaiting mega-cap earnings from Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft after the close.
The AI trade is on fire on Wednesday.
Earnings from international chip makers have sparked a fresh rally in US tech stocks, helping to power the market to fresh records.
The S&P 500 blew past 7,000 for the first time, a key psychological threshold that the market has flirted with lately but never cleared until now. The Nasdaq 100 also hit a record.
Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. opening bell on Wednesday:
- S&P 500: 7,019.25, up 0.15%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 49,090.00, down 0.14% (-67.00 points)
- Nasdaq 100: 26,259.00, up 0.71%
The rally largely advanced on good news in the chips and semiconductors space.
Nvidia was up more than 1% on a report from Reuters that China has given the green light for several large firms to purchase the company's H200 AI chips.
Investors were also encouraged by strong earnings from non-US semiconductor firms. ASML and SK Hynix surged after the semiconductor firms issued robust guidance for 2026, which sent other chip and semiconductor stocks up across the board.
Here were the notable moves in tech:
- SK Hynix: +5%
- Intel: +4%
- ASML: +4%
- Micron Technology: +3%
- Nvidia: +1%
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing: +1%
- Broadcom: +1%
Mega-cap tech earnings were also helping boost sentiment, with investors waiting on results for Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft, three companies at the heart of the AI boom, after the close. Results for Apple are expected on Thursday.
The broader market churned higher as the investors looked ahead to the Fed's January rate decision. While markets are not expecting a rate-cut, investors seem to believe that strong earnings will help drive the next leg of the bull market, according to José Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
"The risk-on attitude on Wall Street, amid a lack of hesitation to lift exposures, is emblematic of participants believing that the prints will deliver beats and raises overall, pointing to an extended runway ahead for AI," he wrote in a note.
"US stock indexes futures began Wednesday in bullish form. Wall Street loves a milestone, so there will be caps in the air if the S&P can maintain the 7,000 level it passed this morning," David Morrison, a senior market analyst at Trade Nation, wrote in a note to clients.