The S&P 500 is up 36 points, or 0.5%, and a fresh record. The 7617 level is the new peak and comes on the same headline’s about a ceasefire that have helped to fuel the rally from 6300 just a few weeks ago.
It’s been a sensational rally that’s likely more driven by AI enthusiasm than anything else. That said, the shape of today’s rally once again underscores that Iran headlines are market movers.
Under the surface, anything touching computing has joined into the rally in the past month. Today’s move is led by IBM up 8.7%, HP up 8.6% and Oracle up 9% along with the usual big gains from Nvidia (6%) and Micron 7.5%).
The moves are breathtaking and come as SpaceX is reportedly aiming for a valuation of at least $1.8 trillion in its IPO, which is aiming for June 12. That will easily be the largest IPO ever but we also got a report today that Anthropic filed confidentially for an IPO later this year. OpenAI will cap the trio of initial public offerings that will all near $1 trillion in valuation.
One laggard today is Meta, which is down 3.9% and has been flat since November as it ramps up AI capex with no end in sight. So far, there is little to indicate that they can produce a model on par with the frontier models. On the flip side, they have an obvious use case for the models, servers and data centers in generating and serving ad content.
Looking ahead, earnings are light this week so the focus will be on the war in Iran, economic data and any AI news
