AI-Related Stocks Surge Despite UK Warning

Wall Street's pause from its record-breaking rally didn't last long.

• The S&P 500 climbed 39.13 points, or 0.6%, to 6,753.72 on Wednesday, a day after snapping a seven-day winning streak, and set its latest all-time high.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed essentially flat. It fell 1.20 points, or less than 0.01%, to 46,601.78.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 255.02 points, or 1.1%, to 23,043.38, hitting a record of its own.

Stocks benefiting from the artificial-intelligence boom continued to pull the market higher following a nearly relentless rise since April. Gold continued its stellar year and pushed further past $4,000 per ounce. Investors have traditionally seen gold as a way to protect against rising inflation, and its price has soared more than 50% this year. Reuters reports that silver also hit a record high on Wednesday.

Advanced Micro Devices climbed 11.4% to add to its rally from earlier in the week after it announced an AI-related deal, the AP reports. It was the best performing stock in the S&P 500. Close behind was Dell Technologies, which piled more gains onto its own rally from Tuesday, when it talked up growth opportunities related to AI. Dell rose 9.1%. Poet Technologies climbed 17% and likewise added to its surge from Tuesday, when it said it raised $75 million in investment to accelerate its growth. The company sells high-speed optical engines and other products used in the AI systems market.

AI-related stocks have broadly been on a tear. Nvidia has soared 40.4% for the year so far. Oracle is up 74.4% over the same time, while Palantir Technologies more than doubled with a 141.7% surge. The performances have been so strong that criticism is rising about prices having gone too far and too fast, like they did during the 2000 dot-com mania. That bubble ultimately imploded, and the S&P 500 halved in value. Proponents say AI stocks are backed by big growth in profits, something that many dot-com stocks didn't have at the turn of the millennium. But the Bank of England nevertheless warned Wednesday of the rising risk that tech stock prices pumped up by the AI boom could face a "sudden correction."

• "On a number of measures, equity market valuations appear stretched, particularly for technology companies focused on Artificial Intelligence," policymakers at the UK central bank said in a report. With Big Tech companies accounting for an increasingly outsized share of stock market indexes, stocks are "particularly exposed should expectations around the impact of AI become less optimistic."

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Elsewhere on Wall Street, AST SpaceMobile jumped 8.6% after Verizon Communications agreed to use its space-based network to offer service to cellular customers when needed, starting in 2026. Verizon slipped 0.2%. On the losing end of Wall Street was Jefferies, which fell 7.9%. The investment bank disclosed some details about its exposure to First Brands Group, a supplier of aftermarket auto parts that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early last week.