NEW YORK (AP) — Rising technology stocks on Monday are helping U.S. indexes recover more of their holiday-season slide that bridged the new year.
The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in afternoon trading and on track for a second straight gain following five straight losses, its longest losing streak since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost an early gain to slip 15 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% higher with an hour remaining in trading.
Trading was mixed, and roughly as many stocks were falling in the S&P 500 as rising. Tech companies were the clear leaders, including those swept up in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. Nvidia climbed 3.7% ahead of a speech by CEO Jensen Huang at the annual CES convention in Las Vegas after trading ends for the day.
Nvidia and other AI stocks keep climbing even as criticism rises that their stock prices have already shot too high, too fast. Despite worries about a potential bubble, the industry keeps talking up its potential.
Microsoft Vice Chair Brad Smith said on late Friday the company is on track to invest about $80 billion to build out AI-enabled datacenters to train AI models this fiscal year. Smith said AI is the biggest opportunity “to harness new technology to invigorate the nation’s economy” since the invention of electricity. Microsoft rose 0.6%.
Uber Technologies drove 2.7% higher after the ride-hailing app said it would accelerate $1.5 billion in purchases of its…
