Wall Street snapped out of its holiday-season funk on Friday.
- The Dow rose 339.86 points, or 0.8%, to 42,732.13.
- The S&P 500 rose 73.92 points, or 1.3%, to 5,942.47.
- The Nasdaq rose 340.88 points, or 1.8%, to 19,621.68.
Nvidia was the strongest force lifting the market, the AP reports, rising 4.5%. Other companies caught up in the craze around artificial-intelligence technology also rose, despite criticism that their stock prices are already too high. Super Micro Computer, which sells servers for AI, jumped 10.9%, and Palantir Technologies climbed 6.3%. "While the easy gains in AI may be behind us, we think this rally looks far from over," according to Solita Marcelli of UBS Global Wealth Management. Another influential Big Tech stock, Tesla, jumped 8.2% to bounce back from its 6.1% tumble the day before, when it disclosed it delivered fewer electric vehicles in the last three months of 2024 than analysts expected. Rival Rivian soared 24.5% after saying it delivered more than 14,000 vehicles in the quarter. That was more than analysts expected.
On the losing end was US Steel, which fell 6.5% after President Biden blocked a nearly $15 billion deal proposed by Japan's Nippon Steel to buy its Pittsburgh-based rival. Molson Coors Beverage fell 3.4%, and Brown-Forman, the distillery behind Jack Daniel's, lost 2.5% after US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned about the direct link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk. Wall Street's post-holiday pullback dimmed its shine by only a bit following two stellar years for US stock indexes. They've vaulted to records after the economy managed to keep growing despite high interest rates that have helped push inflation nearly all the way down to the Federal Reserve's 2% target.
(More
Wall Street stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
