The major US stock indices are closing mostly higher. The Dow industrial average did fall by -0.04%. The NASDAQ 100 was a strongest of the indices with a gain of 0.74%.
The gains came as investors digested the July CPI report, which showed inflation moderating slightly and helped ease concerns about additional Fed tightening.
- Dow Industrial Average: 53,775.39, -22.00 points or -0.04%
- S&P 500: 7,748.50, +20.29 points or +0.26%
- Nasdaq Composite: 26,588.49, +143.04 points or +0.54%
- Russell 2000: 3,045.49, +18.37 points or +0.61%
- Nasdaq 100: 29,742.60, +217.13 points or +0.74%
The Russell 2000 closed at a new record high, surpassing its previous record close of 3,036.98 set on August.
Nebius Group (NBIS) shares surged roughly 34.14% after the AI infrastructure company delivered a strong second-quarter report, highlighted by explosive growth in its AI cloud business.
- Revenue: $582.3 million vs 569M estimate up 454% YoY
- AI cloud revenue: About $575 million, up 514% YoY
- Annual recurring revenue (ARR): Reached $3 billion
- Adjusted EBITDA: $236 million, swinging from a $21 million loss a year ago
- 2026 outlook: Reaffirmed
- Demand: Management says demand for AI computing capacity continues to significantly exceed available supply
Nebius, which provides Nvidia-powered AI computing capacity to customers including Microsoft, continues to benefit from surging demand for AI infrastructure. The results showed not only exceptional revenue growth but also a significant improvement in profitability.
The key concern for investors remains capital spending. Meeting the enormous demand for AI computing requires Nebius to invest billions of dollars upfront in GPUs, data centers and other infrastructure. That leaves the central question for investors: Can Nebius continue converting massive AI demand into profitable growth while managing the enormous capital required to expand capacity?
The list of other AI chip related stock gainers showed:
- CoreWeave (CRWV): $107.73, +19.28%
- Lumentum (LITE): $932.47, +13.63%
- Bloom Energy (BE): $237.16, +12.29%
- Skyworks Solutions (SWKS): $154.41, +9.01%
- Credo Technology (CRDO): $268.16, +8.26%
- Coherent (COHR): $355.64, +8.24%
- Arista Networks (ANET): $210.50, +6.39%
- SanDisk (SNDK): $1,344.29, +5.76%
Overall, the gainers had a strong AI/data-center infrastructure flavor, with Nebius and CoreWeave leading the charge and optical/networking names including Lumentum, Credo, Coherent and Arista also posting sizable gains.
After the close
- Cisco EPS came in at $1.22 versus $1.17 expected. Revenues were at $17.3 billion versus $16.8 billion expected. The outlook for revenues higher than expectations as well with $18 billion – $18.2 billion versus expected $16.8 billion. However, EPS is expected to be lower at $1.08 – $1.10 versus expected $1.16 with year on year expected at $4 – $4.06 versus expected $4.28. Shares are up 2.82% in after-hours trading.:
This article was written by Greg Michalowski at investinglive.com.