[New York Stocks] Tech shares rebound on bargain buying in AI stocks; Tesla surges 3.8%

[Financial News]  

New York tech stocks rebounded on the 19th (local time), thanks to a wave of bargain buying in AI-themed stocks.
Neo-cloud companies such as CoreWeave, which plunged last week, rebounded and revived investor sentiment.
Tesla surged 3.8% amid talk of a merger with SpaceX, ahead of its quarterly earnings report due on the 21st.
By contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), made up of 30 blue-chip stocks, ended slightly lower. The Dow was the only one of the three major indexes to post a gain last week.

The DJIA ended slightly lower, down 36.38 points (0.07%) from the previous session at 51,966.03. It climbed during the session but turned lower in the final minutes as some of the market's late-session strength faded.
By contrast, the S&P 500, which has a high weighting of tech stocks, and the NASDAQ Composite rebounded.
The S&P 500 finished up 31.29 points (0.41%) at 7,690.73, while the NASDAQ Composite rose 290.85 points (1.11%) to 26,430.89.
The Nasdaq-100, made up of 100 large-cap tech stocks, rose 341.80 points (1.17%) to 20,959.35. TQQQ, a leveraged exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks three times the index's daily move, surged $2.43 (3.56%) to $70.64.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX), known as Wall Street's “fear gauge,” plunged 1.57 points (7.85%) to 18.42.

Big Tech stocks rose sharply amid bargain buying in AI stocks.
Palantir surged $8.12 (4.36%) to $194.15, while Tesla climbed $13.34 (3.76%) to $368.06.
Tesla, which is due to report quarterly earnings after the market closes on the 21st and kick off Big Tech's third-quarter earnings season, rose sharply amid expectations of a merger with SpaceX. According to Investor's Business Daily (IBD), RBC forecast in an analysis note on the 16th that SpaceX would acquire Tesla for $480 a share. That would be about a 35% premium over the closing price of $354.72 on the 16th. Although RBC analyst Tom Narayan cautioned in a Yahoo Finance interview on the 19th that a merger between the two companies would not be easy, investors went ahead and bought shares.
Amazon surged $12.45 (4.98%) to $262.45, while SpaceX rose $1.93 (1.32%) to $147.96 at the close.
Alphabet gained $3.59 (1.05%) to $344.18, while Microsoft (MS) rose $4.47 (0.84%) to $533.52 at the close.
By contrast, Apple fell $0.52 (0.15%) to $342.94, while Meta Platforms dropped $3.89 (0.55%) to $705.44.

Semiconductor stocks, one of the mainstays of the AI theme, also gained ground that day.
Sector leader NVIDIA Corporation rose $2.96 (1.38%) to $217.09, while Micron climbed $28.09 (2.97%) to $904.90 at the close.
Intel rose $2.18 (2.43%) to $92.03, while SK hynix's U.S. American depositary receipts (ADRs) surged $6.38 (4.67%) to $142.87.
Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL), a leveraged ETF that tracks three times the daily moves of 30 major semiconductor stocks, surged $4.98 (5.32%) to close at $98.65.

[email protected] Song Gyeong-jae Reporter