On Wednesday Eastern Time, the three major U.S. stock indices opened lower but closed higher, collectively ending in positive territory. The S&P 500 index was just 21 points away from reaching a new closing high (6870 points).
As of the close, the S&P 500 index rose 0.3% to 6,849.72 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.17% to 23,454.09 points; and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.86% to 47,882.9 points.
The "AI narrative" faced renewed skepticism. Before the U.S. market opened, news emerged that Microsoft had lowered expectations for corporate client spending on new AI products. Although Microsoft immediately denied the report, the news still significantly dragged down the company's stock price.
Large technology stocks showed mixed performance. As of the close, Nvidia fell 1.03%, Apple fell 0.71%, Google-A rose 1.21%, Microsoft fell 2.5%, Amazon fell 0.87%, Broadcom fell 0.25%, Meta fell 1.16%, TSMC rose 1.15%, Tesla rose 4.08%, Berkshire Hathaway-A fell 0.28%, and Eli Lilly fell 1.2%.
Silver and copper both hit new highs, with the non-ferrous metals sector performing prominently overall. Alcoa rose 6.37%, Kaiser Aluminum rose 5.89%, and Freeport-McMoRan rose 3.63%. After announcing its vision to challenge for the title of "world copper king" over the next decade, Glencore's U.S.-listed ADRs closed up 7.29%.
Market rumors suggested that the U.S. government would introduce supporting policies to foster the development of the robotics industry. Besides leading robotics company Tesla, some small-cap stocks with "robotics" in their names saw their share prices surge. Nauticus Robotics closed up 115.89%, while robotic vacuum cleaner company iRobot soared 73.85%.
Most Chinese concept stocks weakened, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index closing down 1.38% on Wednesday. As of the close, Alibaba fell 1.89%, JD.com fell 0.6%, Baidu fell 1.44%, Pinduoduo fell 1.43%, Bilibili fell 2.36%, NIO fell 4.77%, NetEase fell 0.96%, Futu Holdings fell 0.78%, Li Auto fell 3.65%, XPeng fell 4.02%, and EHang fell 0.8%.
