A holiday-shortened trading week did little to interrupt the momentum of an AI-fueled bull market that continues to rewrite record books across Wall Street.
The S&P 500 closed out its ninth consecutive weekly gain, a streak achieved only 10 times since World War II. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all finished the week at or near all-time highs, underscoring the breadth of the rally.
Since bottoming in late March, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) has surged roughly 20%, while the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ) has soared 30%.
The scale of the AI infrastructure boom is of historical magnitude. After rallying 40% in April, semiconductor stocks — as tracked by the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) — gained another 23% in May, marking the strongest two-month advance in the fund's history.
Micron Technology Inc. (MU) surged 84% for the month, its best monthly performance since November 1985, propelling the memory-chip maker above the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold. Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) nearly doubled over the past two months, delivering its strongest rally since the final stages of the dot-com boom in December 1999.
Yet the week's most notable development was that the AI trade broadened well beyond chipmakers.
Chart of The Week: Micron Technology Notches Best Monthly Surge Since November 1985
An accompanying chart (not shown here) illustrated Micron's historic monthly surge.
New AI Champions Emerge: Dell & Snowflake
Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL) became the latest beneficiary after reporting record first-quarter revenue of $43.8 billion, disclosing $24.4 billion in AI-related orders and forecasting approximately $60 billion in AI server revenue. Shares jumped roughly 30% on Friday alone, lifting the stock's monthly gain to 97% — the strongest in its history.
Snowflake Inc. (SNOW) also joined the AI party. Shares surged 36.5% on Thursday, their best day ever, after the cloud software company unveiled a five-year, $6 billion commitment tied to Amazon Web Services' Graviton chips, reinforcing investor conviction that AI spending is expanding throughout the technology stack.
Even traditional industrial names found themselves swept up in the enthusiasm. Ford Motor Co. (F) extended its rally to an eighth consecutive session on Friday. The world's oldest automaker gained more than 45% during May, marking its strongest month since April 2009, as investors embraced the company's newly unveiled Ford Energy battery-storage business. Shares climbed to their highest level since 2022.
An accompanying chart (not shown here) illustrated Ford's monthly performance.
Fed's Favorite Inflation Gauge Fails To Reignite Hike Fears
On the macro front, inflation data offered additional support for risk assets. The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE), rose 0.2% in April, below economists' expectations for a 0.3% increase. The annual rate held steady at 3.3%, as expected. Headline PCE accelerated to 3.8% year-over-year, matching forecasts and reaching its highest level since May 2023 as higher energy costs continued to filter through the economy.
Meanwhile, first-quarter GDP growth was revised lower to 1.6% from 2.0%. The combination of in-line underlying inflation and slower economic growth helped ease fears that the Fed may need to resume raising interest rates this year, allowing investors to remain focused on the market's dominant theme: the AI investment boom.
Image created using artificial intelligence via Midjourney.
