STORY: Wall Street’s main indexes rose Wednesday, with the S&P 500 hitting an intraday record high thanks to strong Netflix earnings and a rally in tech shares.
The Dow gained three-tenths of a percent, the S&P climbed about six-tenths and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added nearly 1.3%.
Shares of Netflix surged more than 9.5% after the company reported a record number of subscribers for the holiday quarter and said it’s raising prices in multiple markets including the U.S. and Canada.
Investors also piled into tech stocks a day after President Trump announced a $500 billion private-sector AI infrastructure investment plan from a venture involving Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank.
While this signaled more AI growth potential, Mike Mussio, president of FBB Capital Partners, noted that announcing a plan is a lot easier than executing it.
“There’s a lot of supply of capital. There seems to be a lot of demand still, like, on the chip side in terms of the actual tech companies, in terms of their capital expenditures. But we got to look at each of these compass markings as the quarters go by, both for the company earnings and then the actual growth behind these projects and see where see where it all breaks.”
Investors are also watching for Trump’s trade plans, due to inflation concerns, after he warned that tariffs on imports from China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union could be issued on Feb. 1.
Other stock moves Wednesday included Procter & Gamble, which added nearly 2% after beating second-quarter estimates for sales and profit.
Johnson & Johnson shares fell nearly 2% despite the drugmaker reporting fourth-quarter results above estimates.
And shares of Halliburton slipped roughly 3.5% after the company said it expects flat to slightly lower revenues this year, due to softer activity in North America and Mexico.
