NEW YORK: The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to a record high close on Tuesday, lifted by progress toward ending the longest US government shutdown, while Nvidia and other artificial intelligence-related companies fell on renewed concerns about elevated valuations.
Fueling gains in the Dow and S&P 500 index, members of the US House of Representatives headed back to Washington after a 53-day break for a vote that could end the shutdown, with the Polymarket betting platform fully pricing in a resolution this week.
"Expectations are that the shutdown is over. ... People will get back to work, economic data will be released once again and uncertainty will be behind us," said CFRA Chief Investment Strategist Sam Stovall.
Adding to jitters about AI-related stocks that have fuelled the market's rally in recent years, Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group disclosed its sale of Nvidia shares for US$5.8 billion, and the chipmaker lost almost 3% in Tuesday's trading. Nvidia-backed CoreWeave's shares slumped over 16% after the cloud computing firm trimmed its annual revenue forecast due to data center hiccups.
Sentiment was dampened by a weekly update of ADP's preliminary payroll figures showing that private employers shed an average of 11,250 jobs a week for the four weeks ended October 25.
US President Donald Trump warned of an economic and national security disaster if the Supreme Court ruled against his use of an emergency powers law to impose sweeping tariffs.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.21% to end at 6,846.61 points.
The Nasdaq declined 0.25% to 23,468.30 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.18% to 47,927.96 points.
The Dow has gained almost 13% in 2025, lagging the S&P 500's 16% rise and the Nasdaq's nearly 22% increase.
Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sector indices rose, led by health care, up 2.33% and lifted by gains of more than 2% each in Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and AbbVie .
Occidental Petroleum edged up 0.1% after the shale producer beat third-quarter profit expectations. Paramount Skydance surged almost 10% after the newly merged media firm announced more cost cuts and plans to invest US$1.5 billion in its streaming and studio divisions.
Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 by a 2.2-to-one ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 30 new highs and two new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 104 new highs and 128 new lows.
US bond markets were closed for the Veterans Day holiday. Volume on US exchanges was light, with 15.3 billion shares traded, compared with an average of 20.8 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions. — Reuters
