Post-Bell | S&P 500, Nasdaq End Higher; Tesla Rises 1%; Nvidia Gains 2%; Dell Jumps 9%; AMD Surges 11%; Figma Soars 17%

Technology shares boosted U.S. stocks to a higher close on Wednesday as investors, lacking economic data during the government shutdown, looked to minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent policy meeting for clues to the outlook for interest rates.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq notched all-time closing highs, while the Dow ended essentially flat.

Market Snapshot

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.20 points, or 0.00%, to 46,601.78, the S&P 500 gained 39.13 points, or 0.58%, to 6,753.72 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 255.02 points, or 1.12%, to 23,043.38.

Market Movers

Chip Stocks - Chip stocks soared Wednesday on Bloomberg reports — now confirmed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — that Nvidia is among the investors financing the latest funding round for Tesla CEO Elon Musk's AI company, xAI.

Wolfspeed rose 14%; AMD rose 11%; Super Micro Computer rose 7%; Marvell Technology, Micron, and ON Semiconductor rose 6%; Arm rose 5%; TSMC rose 4%; Microchip Technology, GlobalFoundries, Applied Materials, NXP Semiconductors, Broadcom, and STMicroelectronics rose 3%; Nvidia and Lam Research rose 2%; Qualcomm and Western Digital rose 1%; Intel rose 0.7%.

Tesla - Tesla rose 1.3% after falling 4.5% on Tuesday following the electric-vehicle maker’s announcement that it would roll out a pair of vehicles starting below $40,000, including a new standard Model Y starting at $39,900. The Model Y has limited paint options and a base mileage per charge of about 320 miles, or 40 miles less than premium Model Y products. A new Model 3 will start at $36,900, Tesla added.

Oracle - Oracle rose 1.5% after a 2.5% drop on Tuesday following a report from the Information that highlighted the cloud and AI company’s slim margins from renting outNvidiachips. Oracle lost $100 million in the quarter that ended in August from rentals of Nvidia Blackwell chips, according to the report, which cited internal documents.Nvidia gained 2.2%.

Dell - Dell Technologies rose 9.1% to $164.53 and was one of the top-performing stocks Wednesday in the S&P 500. Analysts atMizuhoraised their price target on the stock to $170 from $160 after the maker of computers and artificial-intelligence serversraised its long-term financial guidance. Mizuho, which maintained its Outperform recommendation on the stock, noted the company’s mention of momentum in enterprise and sovereign AI with strong demand signals over the next 12 to 18 months.Citi, J.P. Morgan, and Wells Fargo, among others, also boosted their price targets on Dell.

Figma - Shares of Figma jumped 16.8% on Wednesday. The AI-focused design platform is seeing its shares continue to gain after OpenAI chief Sam Altman took to the stage earlier in the week at the company's DevDay conference to discuss a new ChatGPT integration with Figma.

Confluent - Confluent jumped 7.6% after Reuters reported the data streaming software company was exploring a sale. The company is in an early stage of the sale process, which was set in motion after several private equity and technology companies expressed interest in acquiring Confluent, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. No sale price was disclosed. Confluent hasn’t responded to a Barron’s request for comment.

Penguin Solutions - Penguin Solutions tumbled 16% after the AI infrastructure company reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ estimates but revenue that missed, and issued a forecast for fiscal 2026 that was well below expectations. Stifel analysts noted the end of hardware sales to a large data-center operator, likely Meta Platforms, contributed to the weak outlook.

AST SpaceMobile - AST SpaceMobile gained 8.6% after the satellite operator announced a deal with Verizon Communications to provide space-based cellular broadband services across the U.S. AST SpaceMobile is a rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Fair Isaac - Fair Isaac declined 9.8% after Equifaxs aid it was “responding to FICO’s monopoly-like doubling of their mortgage credit score prices to $10 in 2026” byreducing VantageScore 4.0 mortgage credit scoresmore than 50% from Fair Isaac’s 2026 prices, to $4.50, through the end of 2027. Fair Isaac last weekunveiled new pricing modelsthat will allow mortgage lenders to calculate and distribute FICO scores directly to borrowers and bypass credit bureaus like Equifax. Equifax shares rose 0.7%.

Freeport-McMoRan - Freeport-McMoRan rose 5.3% to $42.85 after the copper miner received two positive calls from Wall Street after some recent volatility in the stock. Citi analyst Alexander Hacking upgraded shares to Buy from Hold and maintained his price target at $48 a share. “Citi expects copper to rally to $12,000/ton in [first-half 2026],” wrote Hacking. That’s about $6 per pound and higher than the current price that is closer to $5.

FedEx - FedEx declined 1% to $239.93. Analysts at J.P. Morgan downgraded shares of the delivery giant to Neutral from Overweight and trimmed their price target to$274 from $284. “We are increasingly concerned the full year [earnings per share] guide is at risk, given it already embeds a rebound in freight fundamentals,” wrote analyst Brian Ossenbeck. The firm also lowered its price target on United Parcel Service to $85 from $96 and kept a Neutral rating on the shares. UPS rose 0.3% to $86.25.

AZZ Inc - AZZ Inc., the metal coatings and welding services company, is scheduled to report quarterly earnings Wednesday. The stock was up 0.8%.

Market News

Fed Minutes Cautiously Hint at More Rate Cuts. The Path Ahead Is Anything But Clear

Most Federal Reserve officials said it would likely be appropriate to further lower interest rates this year, though they expressed concerns over still-elevated inflation at their latest policy meeting.

Minutes from the central bank’s Sept. 16-17 meeting—where officials lowered rates for the first time this year by a quarter percentage point to between 4.00% and 4.25%—show a committee wrestling with conflicting economic signals and struggling to reach consensus on which is the most pressing issue, stubborn inflation or a weakening labor market.

In the minutes, officials agreed that a September rate cut was necessary in light of recent lackluster employment data. It was the path forward that created disagreements.

Most participants “judged that it likely would be appropriate to ease policy further over the remainder of this year,” read the meeting notes, released Wednesday afternoon.

Trump Says Israel, Hamas Signed off on First Phase of Gaza Deal

Israel and Hamas have signed off on the first phase of the U.S.-proposed Gaza deal, allowing for the release of all Israeli hostages, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.

"I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan," Trump said on Truth Social.

"This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace," Trump added.

The announcement comes a day after the second anniversary of Hamas' attack on Israel that triggered Israel's devastating assault on Gaza.