United States equities gained on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), with Alphabet at the forefront of a renewed surge in artificial intelligence-driven trading ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday period.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 202.8 points or 0.4% higher at 46,448.3, the S&P 500 rose 102.3 points or 1.6% to 6,705.1, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 598.9 points or 2.7% to 22,872.0.
Alphabet rallied 6.3% as investors grew increasingly optimistic about its position in the competitive AI landscape. The company last week unveiled Gemini 3, an upgraded version of its flagship AI model and the successor to Gemini 2.5 released eight months earlier.
The optimism surrounding Alphabet extended across the sector, lifting a broad basket of AI-linked names.
Broadcom surged 11%, Micron Technology gained 8%, Palantir Technologies lifted 4.8%, and AMD each advanced 5.5%.
Meta was up 3.2%, Nvidia advanced 2.1% and Amazon also moved 2.5% higher.
Corporate news drove significant stock-specific swings. Novo Nordisk fell 5.6% after a trial for its potential Alzheimer’s treatment failed to meet its main goal of slowing disease progression.
U.S. Foods added 7.8% after scrapping a potential merger with Performance Food Group. The company reaffirmed its full-year outlook and authorised a new $1 billion share buyback programme.
Tesla gained 6.8% after CEO Elon Musk said on X that the company is close to finalising its A15 AI chip and had begun work on the next-generation A16.
Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares rose 4% after the company reported 10 million downloads in the first week of its new AI app, Qwen.
Media names weakened after President Donald Trump said he opposed the Federal Communications Commission raising or eliminating the 39% cap on local TV station ownership, a change required for the agency to approve the Tegna–Nexstar merger.
Tegna fell 3.5%, while Nexstar dropped 1.4%.
Health-care stocks moved higher - Oscar leapt 22.3%, Centene rose 4.6%, and Molina added 2.6% - after a Politico report said the White House will propose a two-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies due to expire next month and introduce new eligibility limits.
Monday’s rally extended Friday’s rebound after the head of the New York Federal Reserve signalled that a December interest rate cut remained possible.
Still, major indices are on track for a tough month. The S&P 500 slipped around 2% last week and is down roughly 2% so far in November. The Nasdaq has fallen more than 3% month to date, while the Dow is off more than 2%.
The final week of November may bring further volatility, with trading volumes expected to thin out ahead of the Thanksgiving break and few catalysts before the Fed’s December policy meeting.
Meanwhile, pcoming September U.S. retail sales and producer price index readings, due Tuesday, could amplify market swings if they point to a stagflationary environment.
The U.S. holiday shopping season also begins this week, with Thanksgiving on Thursday marking the unofficial start of the consumer spending period.
Despite concerns about rising layoff announcements and softening survey data, the National Retail Federation expects holiday sales to exceed $1 trillion for the first time.
U.S. markets will be closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday and will shut early on Friday.
On the bond markets, 10-year and 2-year rates were down 0.8% and 0.1% to 4.034% and 3.503%, respectively.
