On Wednesday (August 5), the Dow Jones index closed at a historic high, boosted by signs of progress in the US-Iran agreement and the rising stock prices of companies like Nvidia. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq index ended its four-day streak of gains by closing lower, mainly due to SpaceX and AMD experiencing significant stock declines following their quarterly earnings reports.
At the beginning of the week, the stock market saw an uptrend with both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices hitting all-time highs on Tuesday. Market expectations were high for a potential agreement in the US-Iran peace talks, which could help alleviate inflation pressures and reduce expectations of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, leading to declines in oil prices and US Treasury yields.
On Wednesday, the Dow rose by 263.24 points (0.49%), closing at 54,349.12 and achieving a fifth consecutive day of gains. The S&P 500 index reached a new high during trading but ended lower as tech stocks softened, resulting in a 0.17% decline to close at 7,723.55 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell by 0.83% to close at 26,363.44 points.
One of the Dow components, Nvidia, saw a significant increase of over 3% in its stock price. Elon Musk previously stated that SpaceX would exclusively use Nvidia processors for building artificial intelligence computing infrastructure. During SpaceX’s earnings call, he lauded Nvidia for having the “best AI computer”.
According to CNBC, Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird, remarked, “The market seems to be regaining vitality with great enthusiasm.” He added that the recent market volatility had been “quite rare in history”. On Tuesday, the three major indices recorded their best four-day performance since April 2025.
Reuters reported, “We’re just soaring in a straight line, not even catching a breath in between.” Kenny Polcari, Chief Market Strategist at Slatestone Wealth in Jupiter, Florida, referred to the Dow Jones.
“While progress has indeed been made in the negotiations, the market’s attitude is: unless we truly see concrete progress, it won’t buy in easily this time. After all, we’ve been ‘fooled’ too many times in the past four months,” said Polcari.
However, SpaceX’s stock plunged by over 13% following the release of its first quarterly report since going public in June. The company disclosed a six-fold increase in capital expenditures to $18.4 billion for the second quarter, exceeding analyst expectations, with most of the expenditure allocated to the field of artificial intelligence.
Chip giant AMD and Alphabet, a member of the “Big Seven”, showed weak performance. AMD’s stock fell by 7% as the company’s adjusted earnings barely exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. Alphabet’s stock dropped by 4% after the company announced a restructuring of its AI department, with Chief Scientist Jeff Dean departing after 27 years of service.
Amgen’s stock rose by 4.6%, providing over 100 points of support to the Dow Jones index; the company recorded a 9% growth in sales for the second quarter. Competitor Eli Lilly saw a significant 4.9% rise in stock price after raising its full-year revenue forecast. The S&P 500 healthcare sector closed up 1.3%, emerging as one of the best-performing sectors of the day.
Disney’s stock rose by 3.6%, also contributing to the Dow Jones index after the company announced better-than-expected profits for the third quarter.
On the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the ratio of declining stocks to advancing stocks was 1.15 to 1; on the Nasdaq Stock Market, this ratio was 1.34 to 1. The S&P 500 index hit 34 52-week highs and 3 lows, while the Nasdaq Composite index recorded 107 highs and 75 lows. Trading volume across all US exchanges was 17.85 billion shares, compared to an average of 17.34 billion shares over the past 20 trading days.