Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on May 16, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
The Nasdaq Composite rose to a new record Thursday, as Wall Street assessed the latest quarterly results from market bellwether Nvidia.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.6% to an all-time high. The S&P 500 added 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, losing 188 points, or 0.5%.
Chipmaker and artificial intelligence darling Nvidia surged 8.5%, sending shares above $1,000, after posting stronger-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results and announcing a 10-for-1 stock split.
Fiscal second-quarter revenue guidance of about $28 billion also beat an LSEG consensus forecast of $26.61 billion — a sign the company doesn’t see its momentum slowing. For the bottom line, analysts expect a profit of $5.95 per share.
Nvidia’s results have been a focal point for Wall Street, as traders hoped for signs that the excitement around AI is not waning. With its $2.3 trillion market cap, Nvidia also has considerable sway over the broad S&P 500.
The chipmaker’s beat and raise “supplants the AI theme as a real driver of fundamentals today, not just in a future period where it could get adopted,” said Ross Mayfield, Baird investment strategy analyst. “Companies are spending on AI, and Nvidia is building the infrastructure — there’s a whole downstream economy from this.”
Correction: A previous version misstated the consensus revenue estimate for Nvidia’s fiscal second quarter.