Tesla and Goldman Sachs Power Market Rally as Nvidia Makes Headlines

The stock market experienced a broad rally on Thursday, defying expectations of a down week. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.3%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.1% and the S&P 500 added 1%. This marks a slight increase from last Thursday's closing scores for all three indexes.

The biggest contributors to the Nasdaq's gain were Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX) and Tesla, which rose by 7.8% and 7%, respectively. The two companies' shared CEO was likely behind their joint strength, with Tesla unveiling a new robotaxi at an event in Austin after the close of trading.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, on the other hand, saw Goldman Sachs lead the charge with a 3.1% gain, accounting for roughly 30% of the index's total increase. Microsoft and Travelers also contributed to the Dow's rise, with each company gaining 2.7%. The overall sentiment was bullish, with 25 out of 30 Dow stocks trading higher at the time.

Nvidia made headlines with its $12.9 billion bid for AI platform Hugging Face, but the stock only rose by 1.3%, adding approximately $73 billion to Nvidia's market value. This was a more modest gain than some analysts had predicted, who saw the rumors of the deal move Nvidia 3.8% higher in the previous day's trading.

Chip stocks were largely left out of the rally, with Broadcom guiding fourth-quarter revenue lower than expected and Micron Technology and SK Hynix slipping by around 1.5%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF also finished in negative territory.