New York stocks set fresh record highs, lifted by a surge in memory chip-related shares.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index closed at 7,519.12 on Thursday, up 45.65 points, or 0.61%, from the previous session, while the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 312.21 points, or 1.19%, to finish at 26,656.18. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq notched all-time highs. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 118.02 points, or 0.23%, at 50,461.68.
Among large-cap technology stocks, Google parent Alphabet rose 1.44%, Broadcom gained 1.90%, Tesla added 1.78%, and Facebook parent Meta climbed 0.34%. By contrast, Nvidia (-0.22%), Apple (-0.16%), Microsoft (-0.61%), and Amazon (-0.39%) ended lower despite the broader rally.
The session's momentum came from a sharp rally in memory chip-related shares. Micron, which splits the DRAM market with Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, jumped 19.29% and led the broader market. Micron's market capitalization reached $1.0103 trillion, making it the 12th U.S. company to join the "$1 trillion club."
Micron's rally was fueled by heightened expectations for the company as semiconductor demand has surged recently amid the expansion of the artificial intelligence (AI) agent market. In particular, Swiss investment bank UBS raised its price target on Micron to $1,625 from $535, more than tripling the figure, providing the main backdrop for the share price gains. "As the details of the structural changes AI has brought to the memory industry become more concrete, the 're-rate' on Micron will continue," UBS said in a report. Buoyed by Micron's strength, other semiconductor stocks also surged, with AMD up 7.78%, SanDisk up 7.50%, Qualcomm up 4.48%, and Intel up 3.07%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 5.53%.
The Middle East war, with the United States and Iran wrestling over a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on ending the conflict, again added to market uncertainty. Investor sentiment on Wall Street responded positively to U.S. President Donald Trump's assessment a day earlier that "negotiations with Iran are progressing smoothly." On Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said, "The enriched uranium will be immediately handed over to the United States and brought back home for disposal, or it will be disposed of locally or at other appropriate locations in cooperation with Iran."
The market, however, showed signs of concern over the parallel military clashes. U.S. Central Command said the previous day that it had carried out airstrikes targeting Iranian vessels attempting to lay mines and missile launchers in southern Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, describing the strikes as an exercise of self-defense. Iran's foreign ministry pushed back, calling the strikes a clear violation of the ceasefire.
In a related development, the U.S. consumer confidence index for this month worsened from the previous month amid the prolonged Middle East war. The Conference Board, a U.S. economic research group, said its May consumer confidence index (1985=100) stood at 93.1, down 0.7 point from April's revised reading of 93.8.
International oil prices ended mixed amid the unstable Middle East situation. On the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent crude for July delivery settled at $99.58 a barrel, up 3.6% from the previous session. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for July delivery closed at $93.89 a barrel, down 2.8% from May 22, just before the Memorial Day holiday.
