The major US stock indices pushed higher into the close and it seems the Dow closed not only at a record level, but also closed above 40K for the first time. The Dow is the least favored of the major indices, but it is the one that gets America excited. Headlines of Dow 40K means more on „Main Street“ than „S&P 5K“ or „Nasdaq17K“.

The Nasdaq and the S&P closed higher for the 4th week. Each of those indices also traded to new high closing levels this week with the S&P high close now at 5303.14. The Nasdaq new high close comes in at 16742.39.

A snapshot of the closing levels is showing:

• Dow industrial average rose or 0.34% at 40003.60
• S&P index rose 6.17 points or 0.12% at 5303.26
• NASDAQ index fell -12.35 points or -0.07% at 16685.97

The small-cap Russell 2000 fell -0.53 points or -0.03% at 2095.71.

For the trading week, the major indices all closed up over 1%

• Dow rose 1.24%
• S&P index rose 1.54%
• NASDAQ index rose 2.11%
• Russell 2000 rose 1.744%

For 2024, the broader NASDAQ and S&P index are battling it out for the strongest of the major indices (they are nearly up the same):

• Dow Industrial Average is up 6.14%
• S&P index is up 11.18%
• NASDAQ index is up 11.16%
• Russell 2000 is up 3.3%

Next week, the focus for the stock markets (and other markets) will be on Nvidia earnings which will be released after the close on Wednesday. Shares of Nvidia moved down by $-18.80 or -1.99% to $924.79 in trading today, but is up over 86.74% this year and just 1.9% from its all-time high close.

Although the price is up dramatically this year

• EPS are expected to come in at $5.58 which is up from $1.09 during the same quarter in 2023. That is a gain of 411% YoY.
• Revenues for Nvidia are expected at $24.556B vs $7.19B in the same quarter in 2023. That is an increase of 241%.

The stock price a year ago was at $305. With the current price at $933, that represents a rise of 205%. So all things equal, the gain in the stock- even at over 200% is supported by the gains in EPS and Revenues.

Shares of AMD this week moved up close to 8.25% this week, and is closing up 1.13% in trading today. The not-so-good news is the price is down -27.65% from its February high. For the year, AMD shares are up only 11.57% in 2024 (but they are doing better than Intel who’s shares are down -36.66% in 2024.

Micron shares are up 46.81% in 2024. Broadcom shares are up 25.0% this year.

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.