Micron Technology shares surged 5% Tuesday, helping propel the Nasdaq Composite to an all-time closing high and pushing the tech-heavy index's year-to-date gains past 17%. The move came as investors shrugged off lingering concerns about artificial intelligence safety, stretched tech valuations, and an ongoing US-linked energy shock stemming from the war in Iran, choosing instead to focus on the durability of AI-driven demand for computing hardware.
The Nasdaq 100, which tracks 100 of the exchange's largest non-financial companies, jumped 0.82%, while the broader S&P 500 finished essentially flat. Micron, one of the world's three largest memory chip makers alongside South Korea's SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, has become a bellwether for the AI infrastructure buildout as data centers consume ever-larger volumes of high-bandwidth memory to train and run large language models.
Gains were not limited to chipmakers. Monolithic Power Systems, a manufacturer of power management circuits used in data center and AI hardware, led the index with an 8.1% advance, while Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify climbed 7.1%. Nvidia, still the world's most valuable public company, added a more modest 0.7%, and Apple edged up 0.2%. The breadth of the rally suggested investors were rotating capital across the AI ecosystem rather than concentrating solely on the sector's largest names.
Not every AI-adjacent stock joined the advance. Meta Platforms slipped 0.63% Tuesday, cooling off after a blistering 11.4% rally a day earlier that was driven by excitement over Muse, the company's newly launched consumer AI assistant. Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg said the market had been searching for a clear consumer use case to justify years of multibillion-dollar AI spending, and that Muse had reignited that narrative even if it represents an early step rather than a finished product.
Macro conditions provided an additional tailwind. Oil prices, which have been elevated for months amid the conflict between the United States and Iran, fell more than 3% on Monday and traded largely flat Tuesday, with Brent crude futures near $99.18 a barrel. President Trump told reporters that US officials had a constructive meeting with Iranian counterparts on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, and said another round of talks would follow soon — a signal that helped ease some of the inflationary pressure tied to the energy shock.
The record close also arrives just ahead of a closely watched summit between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, scheduled for Thursday in Washington. Semiconductor stocks in particular remain sensitive to the outcome of those talks, given the sector's exposure to Chinese manufacturing, export controls, and end-market demand. Traders will be watching for any signals on tariff relief or technology-related restrictions that could move chip valuations further in either direction.
Asian markets followed Wall Street's lead into Wednesday's session, with Japan's Nikkei 225 and South Korea's Kospi both opening higher, up roughly 1.4% and 0.1% respectively, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slipped more than 0.7%. For US investors, the combination of a resilient AI trade, cooling energy prices, and diplomatic de-escalation on two fronts has, for now, outweighed persistent worries about how much further richly valued tech stocks can run.