S&P 500 rises to record as Nvidia leads chip stocks higher: Live updates

Stocks rose Thursday after getting a boost from semiconductor names, while strong economic data eased lingering fears of a potential recession.

The S&P 500 was last up 0.4% after earlier climbing to a new intraday record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 192 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6%.

Chip stocks led the gains, reversing some of their recent losses. Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia rose 3% and notched a new all-time high. The stock was boosted after Taiwan Semiconductor, a major supplier for Nvidia and other chip manufacturers, reported strong third-quarter results and raised its revenue forecast for the last three months of the year. Shares of TSMC jumped 12%, while AMD also rose 1%.

Michael Green, chief strategist of Simplify Asset Management, said that the rotation back into Big Tech names was simply investors returning to their “normal state of affairs.”

“This feels more like more of the normal, as compared to a broadening or reversal or anything important along those lines,” he told CNBC.

New data released Thursday on the economy also boosted stocks.

September’s retail sales figures showed that consumer spending was still robust, with monthly spending increased by 0.4%, while Dow Jones consensus estimate called for 0.3%. Sales excluding autos shot up by 0.5%, much hotter than the 0.1% forecast. Jobless claims for the week ended Oct. 12 were also lower than expected.

However, Green said that seasonal adjustments were mostly to thank for the strong retail sales numbers, and that the rally higher in equities could be interpreted as due to investor optimism.

“If you look at this year versus just last year on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, [the numbers] were largely flat. So would I interpret it as significantly stronger data? Not really. But what matters is how the market interprets it, and the market clearly wants to see it in a bullish light right now,” he said.