US Stock Market

A chip-fueled rally on a messy-news day

If you glanced at headlines today — war with Iran back in the news, mortgage rates creeping up, the Fed sounding tougher on inflation — you’d expect markets to be nervous, maybe down. Instead, stocks mostly climbed, and the mood was surprisingly upbeat.

The spine of the day: a big surge in semiconductor and high‑growth tech names pulled the whole market higher, even as investors kept one eye on oil and the Fed.

What actually moved

All the major U.S. indexes were green. The S&P 500 was up around 0.8%, the Nasdaq about 1.3%, and small caps did well too. More than 6 out of 10 stocks rose, and an "equal-weight" version of the market — where every stock counts the same — was up close to 1%. That tells you this wasn’t just a couple of giants dragging the averages; it was a genuinely broad move.

The leaders were:

• Technology, up more than 2%, powered by chips. AMD, Micron and other semiconductor names jumped 4–7% in a single day, with Apple and Broadcom strong too.
• Consumer cyclical (think retailers, travel, autos) and financials also gained solidly, as traders warmed up to economically sensitive and bank stocks ahead earnings.