Nasdaq rallies as AI chipmakers rebound ahead of US midterms
The Nasdaq jumped 1.06% on Tuesday as AI heavyweights bounced back ahead of US midterm election results. Apple fell 1.8% after warning of rising memory-chip costs, while chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Micron Technology all gained. The tech-heavy index has entered a correction, down over 10% from its Oct
The Nasdaq rallied on Tuesday as AI heavyweights rebounded ahead of US midterm election results, while Apple fell after the iPhone maker joined the list of Big Tech companies whose quarterly results failed to impress investors.
Apple dropped 1.8 per cent after it warned that the cost of memory chips would continue to rise, pressuring its holiday-quarter gross margin. Memory-chip maker Micron Technology added 2.1 per cent, while Nvidia climbed 3 per cent after falling in the last four sessions. The broader Philadelphia chips index jumped almost 3 per cent, while AMD gained 5.5 per cent ahead of its quarterly earnings due after the bell. Microsoft and Amazon each gained about 2 per cent.
“This is a rotation from safe tech, like Apple, into riskier tech, like chipmakers,” said Jay Hatfield, chief executive officer at Infrastructure Capital Management. “It’s clear dip-buying in a higher-risk, Nasdaq-driven market.”
The Nasdaq-100 on Monday ended more than 10 per cent below its 6 October record-high close, confirming that the tech-heavy index has entered a correction as investors worry that massive investments in AI infrastructure are outpacing near-term cash generation. Shares of Amazon and Alphabet fell sharply last week after their quarterly results deepened investors’ concerns about the cost of heavy AI spending.
The S&P 500 is down about 3 per cent from its record-high close on 6 October, and it remains up 11 per cent in 2026. Oil prices slid about 2 per cent to a three-week low as investors weighed talks to end the wars in Ukraine and Iran against worries about additional supply disruptions from recent attacks in both conflicts. Iran and the United States are still far from a deal to end their war, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
The S&P 500 was up 0.59 per cent at 7,585.95 points. The Nasdaq jumped 1.06 per cent to 25,431.03 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.24 per cent at 51,859.84 points. Six of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by information technology, up 1.49 per cent, followed by a 1.24 per cent gain in industrials.
American voters will deliver a verdict on the first two years of President Donald Trump’s second term in Tuesday’s midterm elections, with polls and nonpartisan analysts favoring Democrats to wrest the House from Republicans, while control of the Senate remains uncertain. “Markets will assess potential implications for fiscal policy, regulation, taxation and government spending. This will be good to put behind us as it has been an anticipated volatility event for quite some time,” said Ken Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management.