Finance

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led Wall Street on Friday, jumping 1.2% and reaching a new record intraday high. Despite the late-week rally across all benchmarks, the market performance over the full week remained mixed. The Nasdaq recorded its third consecutive weekly gain of 0.5%, whereas the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 concluded the week with losses of 1.3% and 0.3%, respectively.

Artificial intelligence hardware giant Nvidia reached an all-time intraday high of $237.88 on Friday, driving its total market valuation beyond $5.7 trillion. The semiconductor sector was further bolstered by Micron Technology, which posted stellar fourth-quarter earnings that beat consensus estimates. Micron saw its revenue surge over 379% year-over-year, heavily driven by robust demand for data center storage and AI-centric memory products.

Digital assets experienced a strong upward move to start the month, often referred to by investors as 'Uptober.' Bitcoin rebounded toward the mid-$86,000 range, while Ethereum reclaimed the $2,700 threshold. The positive momentum was supported by a shift toward a greed-dominated market sentiment and an upwardly revised 12-month target for Bitcoin from Citi.