Nasdaq Closes at Record High as AI Stocks Surge, Meta Jumps Nearly 12% and AMD Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap

The Nasdaq Composite closed at an all-time high on Monday, September 21, surging roughly 2% as a broad rally in artificial intelligence-related stocks powered Wall Street higher. The S&P 500 rose approximately 1%, while falling oil prices and lower Treasury yields provided additional tailwinds across the market.

Meta Platforms led the charge among mega-cap names, climbing nearly 12% in what appeared to be its best non-earnings session relative to the S&P 500 since its IPO year, according to market observers. The move came alongside a Wells Fargo price target hike, elevated option volume running about 4.5 times the normal pace, and anticipation of the company's Connect event scheduled for September 23, where its newly launched personal AI agent, Muse, is expected to take center stage. Meta also carried an ex-dividend date of September 21 for its $0.525 quarterly cash dividend.

Chip stocks were broadly strong. Intel and Arm Holdings each gained around 10% to 12%, while Advanced Micro Devices soared to an all-time high above $610 a share, briefly pushing its market capitalization past $1 trillion. Qualcomm added more than 9%. DigitalOcean shares jumped roughly 14.8% after executives outlined the company's AI-native cloud strategy and focus on AI inference workloads at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference. SpaceX also drew attention, with analysts pointing to a scheduled Nasdaq-100 rebalancing expected to generate passive inflows of approximately $15.5 billion into the stock. Financial stocks advanced as well, rounding out a broad-based session that spanned most major sectors.