NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are getting back to rising on Wednesday, a day after breaking their seven-day winning streak, while the price of gold is pushing further past $4,000 per ounce.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% and is on track to top its all-time high set on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 79 points, or 0.2%, an hour into trading, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher.
Trading has been relatively muted recently following the U.S. government’s latest shutdown. That has delayed the release of several major economic reports that usually move the market. Stocks have been drifting without them or other signals to alter expectations for continued cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve, one of the major reasons the stock market has surged since April.
Another force that’s pushed the market to records is the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
Poet Technologies rallied 9.6% and added to its surge of 23.5% from Tuesday, when it said it raised $75 million in investment to accelerate its growth. The company sells high-speed optical engines and other products used in the AI systems market.
Dell Technologies likewise piled more gains onto its own rally from Tuesday, when it talked up growth opportunities related to AI, and it rose 7.7% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. Advanced Micro Devices climbed 4.4% to add to its spurt from earlier in the week after announcing an AI-related deal.
AI stocks have broadly been on a tear. Nvidia came into the day up nearly 40% for the year so far. Oracle soared 70% over the same time, while Palantir Technologies more than doubled with a 140.9% surge.
The performances have been so strong that criticism is rising about prices having gone too far and too fast like they did during the 2000 dot-com mania. That bubble ultimately imploded and halved the S&P 500’s value.
Proponents say AI stocks are backed by big growth in profits this time around, something that many dot-com stocks didn’t have at the turn of the millennium. But the Bank of England nevertheless warned Wednesday of the rising risk that tech stock prices pumped up by the AI boom could face a “sudden correction.”
“On a number of measures, equity market valuations appear stretched, particularly for technology companies focused on Artificial Intelligence,” policymakers at the U.K. central bank said in a report. With Big Tech companies accounting for an increasingly outsize share of stock market indexes, stocks are “particularly exposed should expectations around the impact of AI become less optimistic.”
Elsewhere on Wall Street, AST SpaceMobile jumped 8.2% after Verizon Communications agreed to use its space-based network to offer service to cellular customers when needed, starting in 2026. Verizon slipped 0.5%.
On the losing end of Wall Street was Jefferies, which fell 1%. The investment bank disclosed some details about its exposure to First Brands Group, an auto parts maker that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early last week.
Gold, meanwhile, continued its stellar year and rose further past $4,000 per ounce. Investors have traditionally seen gold as a way to protect against rising inflation, and its price has soared more than 50% this year.
Worries are high about big debt loads that the U.S. and other governments are building, which threaten to push inflation higher. Political instability around the world and expectations for rate cuts by the Fed are also helping to push up interest in gold.
The Fed will release the minutes from its last meeting later in the afternoon. That’s when the Fed cut its main interest rate for the first time this year and hinted that more reductions may be on the way.
The Fed is trying to support a slowing job market but also says it’s staying mindful of inflation, which remains above its target of 2%. Lower rates can give inflation more fuel.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.11% from 4.14% late Tuesday.
___
AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach and Kelvin Chan contributed.
