US stocks stepped higher on Thursday, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.7%, or more than 350 points, above 50,000 for the first time since February. The S&P 500 rose about 0.8% to cross 7,500 for the first time, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.9% to a record high.
The rally extended a market mood that has been powered by renewed enthusiasm for the AI trade. Nvidia shares climbed more than 4% and its market value reached a record $5.7 trillion, while Cisco shares also soared after its quarterly earnings beat expectations and it laid out an AI-focused restructuring plan that will cut around 4,000 jobs. Cerebras began trading in the afternoon under the ticker CBRS and moved above its IPO price, adding another sign that investors were still reaching for the next AI name.
The biggest single driver for Nvidia came from Washington. The US approved sales of its H200 chips to several Chinese firms, and reported that the Commerce Department had cleared about 10 Chinese companies to buy the chip, including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com. The decision came as President Trump and Xi Jinping opened a two-day summit and called for better US-China ties, with the talks expected to cover issues from tariffs to artificial intelligence.
For the market, the timing mattered. Traders have been pushed to reassess the path for interest rates after higher inflation delayed expectations for cuts, even as April retail sales were helped by higher prices. That backdrop has made earnings and artificial intelligence the clearest sources of momentum, and Thursday’s move showed how quickly both can still pull the market higher.
There was also a quiet transition at the Federal Reserve. Stephen Miran submitted his resignation letter on Thursday, effective shortly before Kevin Warsh is sworn in, underscoring how much of the day’s attention had shifted away from central bank policy and toward the companies and technologies driving the market’s latest surge. The close of trading left one clear answer: Nasdaq futures were following a market that was already acting as if the AI boom still had room to run.
