Tech-fueled rally drives stocks to new records ahead of Fed rate decision and big earnings

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 notched all-time highs, while the Russell 2000 fell 0.6%. The rally was driven by tech, which was by far the best-performing sector ETF, while the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index fell.

The AI trade was back on, led by Nvidia, which jumped after CEO Jensen Huang said the company has more than $500 billion in Blackwell and early Rubin orders through 2026. Huang also announced new partnerships with CrowdStrike, Palantir, and Lucid at the chip designer’s GPU Technology Conference in Washington, DC, driving gains in those stocks. Uber and Eli Lilly also announced new partnerships, but each lost any gains spurred by the news by market close.

Investors are awaiting earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta tomorrow and earnings from Amazon and Apple on Thursday. These five companies collectively account for roughly a quarter of the S&P 500’s market cap.

The Federal Reserve began its two-day meeting today, with traders anticipating that the central bank will announce an interest rate cut tomorrow.

Stocks that moved higher:

• Nokia surged on news that Nvidia will invest $1 billion in the Finnish mobile networking company in a push to accelerate Nokia’s network software.

• UPS spiked after delivering a rosy set of results, with the logistics giant’s cost-cutting efforts beginning to show results in its third-quarter profits.

• Pony AI and WeRide climbed higher on reports that Uber plans to invest in the companies’ Hong Kong listings.

• Cameco Corp. rocketed after the Canada-based uranium company announced that it and Brookfield Asset Management have signed a binding term sheet with the US government to build nuclear reactors in the US.

• PayPal soared after the online transactions giant announced it had signed a deal with OpenAI enabling instant checkout on the chatbot for millions of users.

• UnitedHealth gained after it reported earnings results that beat Wall Street expectations, a sign the company may be getting its operations under control after a tumultuous year.

• A report in the Taiwanese press that Intel is attempting to recruit a recently retired top Taiwan Semiconductor executive to lead R&D at Intel’s troubled foundry division may account for the bump in the stock’s share price.

• SoFi Technologies rose after reporting better-than-expected sales and profits amid its growing menu of financial products.

• Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group ticked up after the company announced that it will be making prediction markets available on its Truth Social platform through its partnership with Crypto.com.

Stocks that moved lower:

• JetBlue fell as it continued its quarterly losing streak, though its loss isn’t as bad as Wall Street expected.

• Corning dipped even as the 174-year-old glass maker and pioneer of Pyrex and fiber-optic cables reported in-line to positive Q3 results, along with a better-than-anticipated Q4 outlook.

• Strive Inc., the Vivek Ramaswamy-backed bitcoin treasury company, plummeted after a torrid two-day rally that saw the stock rise 90% amid back-to-back records for call options traded began to cool.

• Quantum computing stocks D-Wave Quantum, IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and Quantum Computing slumped after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced “AI supercomputers” in partnership with the Department of Energy.