S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit records as AI stocks, jobs data rally markets

Record highs for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq masked how narrow the market’s charge remained, with AI enthusiasm, chip stocks and earnings optimism doing much of the lifting while the rest of Wall Street lagged behind. On Friday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at all-time highs as investors piled into Nvidia, Micron Technology and Sandisk after a jobs report eased fears about the labor market and kept the economy on solid footing.

The S&P 500 finished at 7,398.93, up 0.84%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.71% to 26,247.08. Both indexes also hit intraday records during the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average barely moved, rising 12.19 points, or 0.02%, to 49,609.16, a reminder that the market’s latest leg higher was led far more by technology than by the broad industrial economy. The major indexes also posted a sixth straight weekly gain, their longest such streak since October 2024.

The advance was powered by the same AI trade that has dominated the market this year. Nvidia gained 1.8%, while Micron Technology and Sandisk each surged more than 15% as investors continued to reward companies tied to data-center buildouts and memory demand for artificial intelligence systems. Earlier in the week, Intel and other AI-linked names had already helped push the market to records, underscoring how dependent the rally has become on a small cluster of chip and infrastructure stocks.

The labor market added another boost. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said nonfarm payrolls rose by 115,000 in April, better than the roughly 65,000 jobs economists had expected, even as the unemployment rate held at 4.3%. That combination suggested the economy remained resilient enough to support corporate profits, even if it complicated the Federal Reserve’s path toward interest-rate cuts. In its April 29 statement, the Fed said job gains had remained low on average and inflation was elevated, a backdrop that keeps policy questions front and center for traders.

For retirement savers, the headline numbers offer both comfort and caution. A rising S&P 500 is good news for 401(k) and IRA balances, and the index was up about 8% for the year while the Nasdaq had gained about 13%. But the latest move showed how concentrated those gains have been. If a handful of AI winners are doing most of the work, the market can look healthier on the surface than it really is, especially if earnings expectations or chip demand stumble.