[New York Stock Market] S&P 500 tops 7,000, Nasdaq also hits record high... Tesla soars 7.6%

[Financial News]

The New York stock market shattered previous records on the 15th local time.
Investors have now fully shaken off fears of a war with Iran.
In particular, as the United States is now a net energy exporter, global capital is flowing back into U.S. markets, raising the likelihood that this record-setting rally will continue for some time.
Meanwhile, Tesla, Inc. surged 7.6% after announcing that its in-house artificial intelligence chip, the Tesla AI5 chip, has entered the tape-out stage, the final step before mass production.
Quantum computing startups, which had already posted huge gains the previous day, extended their double-digit rallies on expectations that Nvidia Corporation’s newly unveiled AI model family "Ising" will accelerate the realization of quantum computers.

Both the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite index set fresh all-time highs on the day.
The broad-based S&P 500 index rose 55.57 points, or 0.80%, to finish at 7,022.95, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 376.93 points, or 1.60%, to close at 24,016.02.
By breaking through the 7,000 level for the first time in history, the S&P 500 easily surpassed its previous record high of 6,978.60 set on January 27.
The Nasdaq also posted a new all-time high, its first in about six months since October 29 last year.
Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are heavily weighted toward technology stocks.
In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which tracks 30 blue-chip stocks, slipped 72.27 points, or 0.15%, to end at 48,463.72.
Traditional blue chips struggled, with Caterpillar falling 3.03% and Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase down 1.11% and 1.67%, respectively, dragging the index lower.

Big Tech names led the market’s upward move.
Tesla jumped 27.75 dollars, or 7.62%, to 391.95 dollars on news that its AI5 chip has reached the stage just before full-scale mass production.
Elon Musk, chief executive officer (CEO), said the existing Tesla AI4 chip is sufficient for autonomous driving, adding that the AI5 chip will be used for humanoid artificial intelligence in the Optimus robot and in Tesla’s supercomputers.
Microsoft (MS) surged 18.11 dollars, or 4.61%, to close at 411.22 dollars, while Alphabet Inc. added 4.21 dollars, or 1.26%, to finish at 337.12 dollars.
Apple Inc. also staged a rare rebound, climbing 7.60 dollars, or 2.94%, to 266.43 dollars, and Palantir Technologies jumped 6.45 dollars, or 4.75%, to end the session at 142.15 dollars.

Quantum computing startups continued their double-digit surges.
The previous day, leading player IonQ, Inc. had unveiled technology described as laying the foundation for a "quantum internet," lifting the entire group, and on this day Nvidia pulled the trigger for another round of explosive gains.
Nvidia introduced an open-source AI model family called "Ising."
Ising is a set of design and control tools that assist researchers building quantum processors, and it can boost accuracy by up to three times in the error-correction process, which is the biggest weakness in quantum computing.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, confidently predicted that AI will serve as the operating system (OS) for quantum computers, transforming unstable qubits into a reliable system.
Expectations are growing that the day when quantum computers are used in the real world will arrive sooner than previously thought.
As a result, quantum computing-related stocks went on a tear.
Leader IonQ, Inc. soared 7.49 dollars, or 20.95%, to 43.25 dollars, while Rigetti Computing, Inc. jumped 2.24 dollars, or 13.28%, to 19.11 dollars.
D-Wave Quantum Inc. surged 3.84 dollars, or 22.63%, to 20.81 dollars, and Quantum Computing Inc. climbed 1.29 dollars, or 15.91%, to 9.40 dollars.

dympna@fnnews.com Song Kyung-jae Reporter