Trending stocks in another record week for Wall Street
The S&P 500 (SP500) gained +1.5% on the week to reach another all-time high as investor reactions continued to pour in on positive economic indicators.
The benchmark index posted gains in three out of five sessions, and its accompanying SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) rose 1.4% during the week. Dow (DJI) too climbed 1.5% and reached a new intraday record high in the week.
Despite a cloud of geopolitical concerns looming globally, U.S. markets were buoyed by a better-than-expected consumer inflation report and favorable quarterly results from the big banks to kick off the third-quarter earnings season.
The Nasdaq Composite index also gained 1.7%, amid renewed optimism in the tech sector, especially around AI-related stocks.
Here were the top trending stocks this week:
Cloudflare (NET) shares rallied to its highest level since April on Thursday, closing the week around 12% higher. During the week it announced the acquisition of Kivera, a cloud security, data protection, and compliance platform.
Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) shares fell over 2.5% as the U.S. Department of Justice indicated on Tuesday it was considering a possible breakup of Google’s units as an antitrust remedy. The stock also fell after the latest blow from the Google/Epic Games legal battle, with a judge ruling that for the next three years in the U.S., Google must allow developers to bring their own app stores to the Android mobile operating system to rival Google’s own Play Store.
Astera Labs (ALAB) shares surged nearly 28% after the semiconductor connectivity company announced a new portfolio of fabric switches optimized for AI dataflows in accelerated computing platforms deployed at cloud-scale.
Tesla (TSLA) tumbled 12.5% during the week in reaction to the Elon Musk-led company’s “We, Robot” event on Thursday night. Analysts reacted negatively to the event, saying it lacked any real details or data regarding the tech, ride-share economics or go-to-market strategy for the much-touted CyberCab robotaxi.
Super Micro Computer (SMCI) jumped around 12%, rebounding from recent weakness, as it disclosed some positive shipment data, including the recent deployment of more than 100,000 GPUs for some of the largest AI factories and cloud service providers.
10X Genomics (TXG) shares plunge nearly 18% on the week after it reported preliminary Q3 revenue that came in below consensus. The company is projecting revenue in the quarter of $151.7M, a 1% decline from the year-ago period. Consensus is $162.26M.
First Solar, (FSLR) a maker of electricity-producing solar modules, dropped 8% during the week after Jefferies pared its expectations for its Q3 upcoming results, expecting the focus of the report to be on potential delays and other headwinds.
Pfizer’s (PFE) shares jumped during the week but ended 0.65% lower, amid continued developments in activist investor Starboard Value’s latest campaign. The Wall Street Journal reported the hedge fund was pushing for value-creating measures at Pfizer (PFE) and CEO Albert Bourla has agreed to a meeting next week.
Boeing (BA) fell 4% as negotiations with around 33,000 striking employees hit a stalemate, S&P Global Ratings considering a downgrade of the company’s credit grades to junk, and the beleaguered plane maker warning that it will cut its total workforce by ~10% and delay the first delivery of its 777X jet by a year, while reporting preliminary Q3 revenues that missed analyst consensus.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares dropped around 1.8% during the week, amid negative investor reactions to its Advancing AI 2024 event in San Francisco, during which it unveiled new AI chips.