Stock Market Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones Rebound as NVDA, AAPL, MSFT, AMZN Lead

Stock Market Today – Wall Street reopens after Presidents Day with AI megacaps back in charge

U.S. indices: tech drives outperformance while geopolitics lifts oil and gold

The S&P 500 trades around 6,885, up roughly 0.6% on the session, while the Nasdaq Composite outperforms at about 22,765, adding close to 0.8% as AI leaders reassert control after the Presidents Day break. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up around 265 points to roughly 49,800, gaining about 0.5%, with cyclicals and financials helping the move higher. Volatility remains contained: the VIX sits near 19.7, down almost 3%, signaling that despite recent AI wobble, positioning remains risk-on rather than defensive.

On the macro layer, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield edges up to about 4.09%, only a few basis points higher, confirming that today’s rally is driven more by earnings and AI-capex narratives than by any meaningful repricing of the Fed path. The WSJ Dollar Index around 94.6, up roughly 0.3%, underlines a firm dollar backdrop that coexists with strong equities – a combination that usually requires robust growth expectations to sustain.

Commodities reflect the geopolitical tape. Brent crude trades near $69.6 (up roughly 3.2%), and WTI around $64.4 (about 3.3% higher) as markets react to renewed U.S.–Iran tension and Washington’s explicit warning that military options are on the table if Tehran ignores red lines. At the same time, spot gold hovers around $4,930–$4,950 per ounce after a sharp drop the previous day, reclaiming roughly 1%+ on classic dip-buying ahead of this week’s Fed minutes and the upcoming PCE inflation print.

From a TradingNews positioning standpoint, the combination of higher Nasdaq, firmer oil and a bid in gold signals an environment where investors are willing to re-embrace risk but keep hedges via commodities, not volatility.

AI capex super-cycle: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) reset leadership

The core equity story today is the renewed AI-capex wave. NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) trades around $189, up roughly 2.2% on the session, after sealing a multi-year, “tens of billions of dollars” hardware deal with Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META). The agreement includes millions of Blackwell and Vera Rubin GPUs plus significant deployments of Grace and Vera CPUs, effectively locking in Meta’s next generation of data centers around NVIDIA silicon.

The market is reading this as confirmation that the AI build-out is broadening rather than peaking. While there were concerns the sector’s rally had overshot fundamentals, the last four months’ forward earnings estimates for tech are still up roughly 20%, and today’s tape is rewarding companies that can translate AI hype into contractual spending. For NVDA, the message is straightforward: visibility on multi-year demand remains high, even as it trims legacy strategic holdings like Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) and Applied Digital.

At the same time, Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) still trades higher, around $128, up nearly 0.9%, despite NVDA disclosing it has fully exited its 1.1 million-share stake (previously worth about $156 million). The fact that ARM rallies while NVIDIA sells out underscores that the market sees Arm’s IP and royalty model as structurally tied to AI and edge compute, with limited dependence on any single shareholder.

For TradingNews, the takeaway is that the AI capex cycle is moving into a second phase: hyperscalers like META, AMZN, and others are not scaling back; they are consolidating around their preferred vendors. That supports a bullish bias on NVDA and ARM over the medium term, with the obvious caveat that sentiment is crowded and pullbacks can be violent.

Mega-cap tech: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) fights back after $450B drawdown

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is the other key outperformer. The stock trades around $204.7, up roughly 1.7% today after regulatory filings showed Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square increased its stake by 65% in Q4, making Amazon its third-largest holding. That move lands just days after Amazon finally snapped a nine-day losing streak that erased about 18% of its market value and roughly $450 billion in capitalization from February 2 to last Friday.

The market is split on AMZN’s plan to spend around $200 billion in capex this year – nearly 60% above last year and over $50 billion ahead of earlier Street expectations. Bears treat it as another AI-capex bubble that pressures free cash flow; Pershing’s aggressive add signals the opposite: a belief that AWS, advertising, and logistics will monetize that spend with higher-margin AI services, justifying today’s premium.

Given the combination of a large, long-duration capex plan and a high-conviction activist increase, the TradingNews stance tilts constructive/bullish on AMZN, but with the explicit understanding that volatility will remain elevated until the market sees hard data proving AI workloads are converting into revenue and operating leverage.

Cybersecurity reset: Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) punished despite strong Q2

The day’s biggest tech loser is Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW). The stock trades near $149–$150, down roughly 8.5–8.6% after the company delivered a strong fiscal Q2 – beating on both revenue and EPS – but issued a weaker-than-expected EPS guidance for Q3, projecting $0.78–$0.80 per share versus the Street’s $0.92 consensus.

On the earnings call, CEO Nikesh Arora made a direct pushback against the idea that AI is a threat to cybersecurity, saying AI will not replace security “anytime soon” and that customers increasingly want integrated security stacks that can actually leverage AI faster and more consistently. The market reaction shows how unforgiving the current environment is: guidance disappointment in a high-multiple software name is punished even when the long-term story is intact.

From a TradingNews perspective, today’s sell-off looks more like a positioning flush than a structural thesis break. The company is still growing, still guiding higher full-year revenue, and is deeply embedded in enterprise and government stacks. On a risk-reward basis, the sharp single-day de-rating pushes the bias closer to Hold / selectively Buy on weakness, not outright bearish – but investors will demand visible operating leverage and proof that AI-driven efficiency can support margins rather than compress them.

Media, data and Buffett flows: The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) and Berkshire rotation

In media, The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT) trades softer despite a new position from Berkshire Hathaway. The conglomerate bought around 5.1 million NYT shares in Q4, marking Warren Buffett’s renewed interest in media after having exited newspapers in 2020. At the same time, Berkshire cut positions in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) for a third straight quarter and slashed its Amazon stake by roughly 77%, while trimming Bank of America (NYSE:BAC).

The net message for indices is that long-only value capital is rotating inside big tech rather than leaving it. A stronger dollar and higher yields would normally pressure growth, but the AI trade is reshuffling leadership – NVDA, META, select semiconductor names – while old stalwarts like AAPL de-couple. Apple’s 40-day correlation to the Nasdaq-100 dropped to about 0.21, the lowest since 2006, showing how much the AI “whack-a-mole” theme is fragmenting tech exposure.

For trading around the Nasdaq, that means index-level strength is increasingly concentrated: upside depends more on a narrow band of AI winners than on broad-based tech participation, which keeps tail-risk high if sentiment turns.

Chip complex: Micron (NASDAQ:MU), Analog Devices (NASDAQ:ADI) and AI infrastructure

Beyond NVDA and ARM, the wider chip sector is also outperforming. Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) gains more than 1% after filings showed David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management added to its position. This is another signal that hedge-fund smart money sees memory and HBM (high bandwidth memory) as critical infrastructure for the AI cycle rather than a commoditized afterthought.

On the analog side, Analog Devices (NASDAQ:ADI) rallies around 4% after posting a 30% year-on-year revenue jump last quarter and issuing guidance above expectations. A 30% revenue expansion at this stage of the cycle is not a trivial number – it underlines how much AI, industrial and auto demand is still feeding into mixed-signal and power management components. For the S&P 500, ADI’s beat backs the notion that AI is more than a GPU story; it’s a system-wide capex theme.

TradingNews view here is clean: the semiconductor complex remains structurally bullish, with individual names re-rated based on how directly they sit in the AI capex stack. NVDA, MU, ADI, and ARM are better supported than second-tier, story-only names that lack earnings proof.

India and Asia: Sensex, Nifty 50, and sector rotations around AI volatility

Outside the U.S., India’s BSE Sensex closed around 83,734, up 283 points (+0.34%), while the Nifty 50 ended near 25,819, adding 94 points (+0.37%). The outperformance came from metals, PSU banks and FMCG stocks, while IT resumed its decline after a short-lived relief bounce.

On the Sensex, Kwality Wall’s (India) Ltd. gained about 5%, Tata Steel (NSE:TATASTEEL), ITC (NSE:ITC), Axis Bank (NSE:AXISBANK) and Mahindra & Mahindra (NSE:M&M) rose up to roughly 3%, while Tech Mahindra (NSE:TECHM), Infosys (NSE:INFY), HCLTech (NSE:HCLTECH) and Tata Consultancy Services (NSE:TCS) slipped up to 1.6%.

The message is that domestic flows are rotating into value and rate-sensitive names – PSU banks, industrials, capex plays – while IT absorbs an AI-driven de-rating. Volatility in Indian IT is not just local; it’s leveraged to the same global concern: AI potentially compressing legacy outsourcing margins. Brokerages like Nomura and UBS are re-evaluating the sector, but local strategists still see tech as an attractive entry opportunity on longer-term AI integration.

For TradingNews, India’s tape confirms a global pattern: AI optimism supports headline indices but forces internal factor rotation, with banks and cyclical industrials outperforming even as traditional IT drifts lower.

Commodities and FX: oil spike, gold rebound, dollar firm – macro hedge, not panic

On the macro side, three lines matter for today’s cross-asset picture:

• Crude oil: Brent near $69.6 and WTI around $64.4, both up more than 3%, as U.S. officials say Iran has not met key U.S. demands in nuclear talks and military options remain on the table. The move pushes energy equities and the S&P GSCI spot index higher (around +2%).

• Gold: spot around $4,930–$4,950, up more than 1% after a drop of over 2% on Tuesday. That bounce shows classic dip-buying in the face of geopolitical risk and ahead of Fed minutes and PCE. Silver lags after dropping more than 5% previously, while platinum and palladium gain about 2% and 1.9%, respectively.

• Dollar: the WSJ Dollar Index at about 94.6, up roughly 0.3%, with particular strength against the New Zealand dollar after the RBNZ held rates and signaled policy would stay accommodative. The Indian rupee trades near 90.66 per USD, almost flat versus 90.67 previously, and U.S. 10-year yields sit just above 4.08%.

This is not a “panic” macro tape. A stronger dollar and higher oil usually hurt risk assets, but today they’re functioning as hedges in a market that is still comfortable owning Nasdaq, S&P 500 and EM beta. That backdrop supports a mildly bullish stance on global equities as long as upcoming Fed communication doesn’t reset rate-cut expectations abruptly.

TradingNews verdict – indices and key names: where this leaves Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow

Pulling everything together for Stock Market Today – post-Presidents Day:

• Nasdaq / S&P 500 / Dow: The session is an outperformance day for growth and AI, with Nasdaq leading, S&P 500 solidly higher and the Dow supported by financials and cyclicals. As long as tech forward earnings stay up ~20% over four months and AI capex prints as real orders – NVDA/META, ADI, MU – the bias for U.S. indices is Bullish / Buy-on-dips, not chase-every-gap-higher.

• NVIDIA (NVDA), Meta (META), Arm (ARM), Micron (MU), Analog Devices (ADI): the AI hardware stack remains the core leadership group. With Meta committing “tens of billions” to NVIDIA hardware and ADI growing revenue 30%, TradingNews stance is Bullish / Buy on the AI-infrastructure basket, acknowledging high sentiment risk but backed by hard numbers.

• Amazon (AMZN): after a $450 billion drawdown and a 65% Pershing Square position increase, the setup is constructive. The massive $200 billion capex plan is controversial, but at TradingNews we see it as a long-duration AI and logistics bet rather than reckless spending. Verdict: Bullish / Buy, accepting volatility.

• Palo Alto Networks (PANW): Q2 beat, Q3 EPS guide miss, ~8–9% sell-off. Fundamentals do not justify a structural bearish call yet. Cybersecurity demand and AI-assisted SOC consolidation remain intact. Verdict: Hold with a bias to accumulate on further weakness, not a clean short.

• India (Sensex / Nifty 50): PSU banks, metals and FMCG lead; IT underperforms. With Sensex 83,734 and Nifty 25,819, domestic flows and earnings still support Buy/Hold on India indices, but with a rotation preference: overweight PSU banks, industrials and select consumption; underweight high-multiple IT until AI-related earnings risk is properly priced.

Overall: after a holiday closure, global markets are tilting bullish, driven by tangible AI capex, selective earnings beats and contained rates. The Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow are not cheap, but today’s tape is not running on air – it is backed by hard spending commitments, 30% revenue growth prints and multi-billion-dollar stake moves from Ackman and Buffett. From a TradingNews view, the bias across the main U.S. indices remains Bullish / Buy-on-dips, with the clear understanding that in 2026, AI leaders – not the broad market – are setting the tone.

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