Nasdaq rises on the back of Amazon, but S&P 500 gives up gain: Live updates

The Nasdaq Composite rose on Friday as strong quarterly results from tech giant Amazon spurred investors’ confidence in artificial intelligence.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 0.4%, while the S&P 500 pulled back from its solid gains earlier in the session to hover around the flatline. Most of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were in the red during the session, with only consumer discretionary and energy seeing a boost. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 108 points, or 0.2%.

Amazon shares rallied 10% after the e-commerce giant said its cloud computing unit’s revenue increased 20% in the third quarter, exceeding Wall Street’s estimates. The company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, said that AWS is “growing at a pace we haven’t seen since 2022” and that AI and core infrastructure are experiencing “strong” demand.

“AI adoption is picking up, which makes the business investments in growing computing power and functionality of Gemini worthwhile. This will be a key metric going forward as we now have more than $600 billion in CAPEX spending committed for next year,” Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, told CNBC.

Those on Wall Street bought up shares of other AI-related names as well on the heels of Amazon’s results. AI software firm Palantir rose more than 2%, while leading AI player Oracle was higher by more than 1%.

“Investors will be paying attention to how that spending comes back to each company in the form of growing AI sales,” Mulberry said.

Supporting the Nasdaq, streaming giant Netflix added more than 3% after the company announced a 10-for-1 stock split. Electric vehicle maker Tesla was a winner as well, with shares seeing jump of more than 1%.

Stocks are coming off of a lackluster session, as each of the benchmark indexes closed Thursday in the red. The market was dragged lower by losses in big-name tech stocks Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Nvidia amid investors’ concerns about increasing AI spending. Meta recorded its biggest one-day loss in three years.

However, worries about the possibility of an all-out trade war between the U.S. and China were soothed Thursday after President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping reached a one-year trade truce following their meeting in South Korea.

The three leading U.S. stock indexes are on track to close out a winning week and month. The S&P 500 has gained 0.4% so far this week, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq and Dow are up almost 2% and 0.3%, respectively, week to date.

October — which has experienced some of the largest one-day losses in stock market history — has seen the S&P 500 climb about 2% over the month. The Nasdaq has jumped more than 4%, and the 30-stock Dow is up around 2% month to date. The Dow is on pace for its sixth positive month in a row for the first time since 2018.