Finance

Led by strong upward momentum in major technology firms like Nvidia, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite outperformed other major benchmarks to touch a new record high. While the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader S&P 500 finished the first week of October with minor losses, sustained enthusiasm for artificial intelligence hardware and software continues to support a divergence within equity markets.

The price of Bitcoin rallied strongly toward the $86,000 mark as digital assets saw upward traction right before the latest domestic employment data. Despite impressive short-term gains over the past few months, the broader crypto sector still faces potential headwinds from high energy costs and shifts in institutional exchange-traded fund inflows ahead of late October monetary policy decisions.

Micron Technology posted an eleven-fold increase in non-GAAP earnings per share for its fourth fiscal quarter, comfortably beating Wall Street projections. The chipmaker's robust bottom-line performance was largely driven by tight pricing conditions in memory markets alongside exponential growth in enterprise solid-state drive revenue from artificial intelligence deployments.