Stocks were mixed to start the holiday-shortened week as investors looked ahead to this Friday's key inflation update. Despite the diverging price action, one of the three main benchmarks ended the day at a new record closing high.
Specifically, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6% to 17,019, its highest finish ever. The S&P 500, meanwhile, eked out a marginal gain at 5,306, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% to 38,852.
Helping boost the tech-heavy Nasdaq was a major rally in chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA). Indeed, the Magnificent 7 stock soared 7%, gaining more than $180 billion in market value along the way. To put this figure in perspective, it's roughly equivalent to the entire market cap of fellow blue chip stock McDonald's (MCD, -1.8%).
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Boosting shares was news that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, raised $6 billion over the weekend in its latest round of fundraising, valuing the company at $24 billion. However, today's upside is just more of the same for NVDA, which has nearly tripled in the past 12 months.
At $1,140 per share, NVDA is currently beyond the reach of most retail traders looking to buy individual shares. Still, the mega-cap stock is broadly owned in many funds, so it's likely that investors already have exposure to Nvidia. This makes the company's upcoming stock split somewhat of an inconsequential event.
Hess shareholders approve Chevron buyout
In other single-stock news, Chevron (CVX) was one of the best Dow Jones stock today, rising 0.8% after Hess (HES, +0.4%) shareholders approved a $53 billion merger with the oil major.
CVX first announced its intention to buy the oil exploration and production company last October. While today's vote clears one hurdle for Chevron, there are others it faces before its acquisition of Hess can proceed.
First is clearance from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which Susquehanna International Group analyst Biju Perincheril believes could happen within the next month or so.
"The last gating item would be arbitration proceedings with Exxon Mobil (XOM, +1.3%), where our understanding is that a final ruling could stretch to the fourth quarter of this year (unless the two parties reach some sort of a settlement earlier)," Perincheril writes in a note to clients.
Consumer confidence ticks higher in May
Meanwhile, on today's economic calendar, data from The Conference Board showed its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 102.0 in May from 97.5 in April.
"Confidence improved in May after three consecutive months of decline," said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, boosted by a strong employment backdrop. "Views of current labor market conditions improved in May, as fewer respondents said jobs were 'hard to get,' which outweighed a slight decline in the number who said jobs were 'plentiful,'" Peterson added.
Fed's favorite inflation measure is due out Friday
Most investors are looking ahead to this Friday's release of the Personal Consumption and Expenditures (PCE) Price Index – the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation that measures consumer spending.
An extension of the stock market's recent rally "could depend on whether investors still feel positive about rate cuts after this week's numbers," says Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley.
Market participants have come to terms with the fact that the first rate cut will come in September at the earliest. However, "more sticky inflation data still has the potential to trigger market volatility," Larkin adds.
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