Small Caps Hit First New High in 4 Years: Stock Market Today

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It was a record-setting session on Wall Street Thursday thanks to a big rally in tech stocks. Even small caps came along for the ride, with the Russell 2000 notching its first new record high in nearly four years.

At the close, the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3% at 46,142, the broader S&P 500 had gained 0.5% to 6,631, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had added 0.9% to 22,470 – new record closing highs.

Not to be left out, the Russell 2000 – an index made up of small-cap stocks – was 2.5% higher at 2,467, surpassing its previous all-time peak of 2,442.74 from November 9, 2021.

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"The stock market bonanza shows no signs of fatigue after yesterday's Fed decision was accompanied by predictions of one or two more cuts by Christmas, amidst economic growth estimates in the dot-plot being revised upward," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.

The loosening of financial conditions "will help the cyclically oriented, rate-sensitive areas of the economy that have been languishing," Torres adds, which is evidenced by the outsized rally in the Russell 2000 "because it's the gauge most vulnerable to restrictive monetary policy."

Also helping lift sentiment today was an encouraging reading on initial jobless claims, which fell by 33,000 last week to 231,000.

This came "just seven days after the print reached its highest level in 47 months, which generated elevated angst about labor conditions," Torres notes.

Intel stock soars nearly 23% on Nvidia stake

Technology was by far the best-performing of the 11 S&P 500 sectors today, gaining 1.7% on a rally in semiconductor stocks.

Thursday's most notable mover was likely Intel (INTC), with shares soaring 22.8% on news that Nvidia (NVDA, +3.5%) will invest $5 billion in the embattled chipmaker.

The investment, which still needs regulatory approval, is part of a broader deal between the two companies that will result in the co-development of data center and PC chips.

"This historic collaboration tightly couples Nvidia's AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel's CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in the press release. "Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing."

"The expanded partnership is solely for products, which have completely missed the AI boat, and we question whether this will significantly improve INTC's data center prospects and drive earnings upside," says CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino. "That said, we do believe it does set up the prospects for NVDA to eventually leverage INTC's foundry business as INTC desperately seeks a major external partner."

Zino maintained his Buy rating on Nvidia after the news, and reiterated a Hold rating on Intel.

For what it's worth, Nvidia replaced Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in November 2024.

CrowdStrike shares jump after investor day

CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD) was also on the positive side of the ledger today, jumping 12.8% after a number of Wall Street analysts chimed in after the cybersecurity firm's investor day.

The annual conference shows that CrowdStrike continues to be the "cybersecurity gold standard," says Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, who has an Outperform (Buy) rating and $545 price target on the stock. "CRWD is putting AI innovation front and center as the company unveiled 7 new AI agents that take repetitive and complex tasks users face and automate them by leveraging the Charlotte framework [the company's AI tool]."

Stifel analyst Adam Borg also chimed in on the cybersecurity stock, lifting his price target to $515 from $495.

"Going into the event, we expected a relatively pedestrian analyst session given CrowdStrike's existing fiscal year 2029 and 2031 targets," Borg wrote in a note to clients. "That said, to our pleasant surprise, CrowdStrike offered several positive comments that signal management's confidence in the business trajectory in coming years."

Wall Street, as a whole, is generally bullish on CRWD. Of the 54 analysts covering it who are tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 34 say it's a Buy or Strong Buy, 19 have it at Hold and just one rates it at Sell. This works out to a consensus Buy recommendation.

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With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at a local investment research firm. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.