Wall Street continued its strong performance on Wednesday as artificial intelligence (AI) chip stocks surged on renewed optimism about the technology.
In terms of major index performance, the S&P 500 rose 0.62% to 6,944.82 points, the Dow Jones rose 0.99% to 49,462.08 points and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.65% to 23,547.17 points.
Moderna shares jumped nearly 11% after BofA Global Research raised its price target, helping the S&P 500 healthcare index rise 1.96%.
Memory and storage technology stocks also rose after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the latest chip platforms that include a next-generation data storage platform at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
SanDisk shares surged more than 27%, Western Digital rose 17%, Seagate Technology gained 14% and Micron Technology added 10% with all four stocks hitting new highs.
The PHLX chip index rose 2.75% to an all-time high, posting a gain of 8% for the first three trading sessions of 2026.
Meanwhile, the latest data showed a decline in the final S&P 500 Composite PMI to 5.7 in December from 53.0 in the previous month, while the services PMI slipped to 52.5 from 52.0.
