Wall Street’s main indexes hit record highs on Wednesday, with Nvidia becoming the first company to surpass a $5 trillion valuation, while investors awaited an expected Federal Reserve rate cut and a wave of Big Tech results.
Shares of Nvidia rose 4.7%, storming past the milestone after CEO Jensen Huang announced $500 billion in AI chip orders and plans to build seven supercomputers for the U.S. government.
The stock has risen about 50% so far this year, and has been among the top boosts to U.S. equities in 2025. Apple briefly topped $4 trillion in market cap on Tuesday, while Microsoft trades above that level.
“While the $5 trillion milestone seems unfathomable in a historic context, it comes in the wake of a company that has managed to outperform on all metrics,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management.
The S&P 500 tech index gained 1.4%, while the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index added 2.1%.
Meta and Microsoft were flat, while Alphabet gained 0.3% ahead of their earnings results after markets close.
At 09:46 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6%, the S&P 500 gained 0.35% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.66%.
The three major indexes have hit a series of record highs in recent days, driven by optimism around artificial intelligence, positive earnings momentum and expectations of rate cuts from the U.S. central bank.
Boeing fell 3% after the planemaker reported a charge of nearly $5 billion related to delays in its 777X jet program, while Caterpillar shares jumped nearly 10% after beating third-quarter profit expectations.
Wall St at record highs after Microsoft-OpenAI deal
Seagate Technology shares rose 13.5% after the company forecast second-quarter earnings above Wall Street estimates.
Peers Sandisk and Western Digital gained 7.3% and 8.7%, respectively.
Verizon rose 3% after beating estimates for quarterly profit and wireless subscriber additions.
S&P consumer staples dropped 0.9%. Both Kraft Heinz and cadbury-maker Mondelez International trimmed their annual profit forecasts, sending shares down 2.4% and 4.2%, respectively.
Of the 222 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported so far, almost 85% have posted earnings above analyst expectations, according to data compiled by LSEG as of Wednesday.
FED OUTLOOK, TRADE DEALS EYED
The Fed is widely expected to trim rates by a quarter of a percentage point later in the day with traders expecting another 25 basis point cut in December.
After nearly a month of a U.S. government shutdown that has kept key economic data under wraps, investors will hunt for clues on the Fed’s rate path after leaning on private surveys and corporate announcements to fill the void.
Investors will also keep an eye on any plans to end the central bank’s “quantitative tightening” policy – a long-running effort to shrink its balance sheet.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump began the final leg of his Asia trip, saying he had reached a deal with South Korea and was optimistic about an agreement with China’s Xi Jinping. Talks between the two counterparts are set for Thursday in the port city of Busan.
Among other stock moves, Fiserv slumped 44.3% after lowering its annual earnings forecasts for the second consecutive quarter.
American Dollar Exchange Rate