The Dow Jones Industrial Average made history on Monday, January 22nd, as it finally breached the critical 38,000 level. As trading began for this week, the Dow was up by 0.4%, hence the breakthrough.
The beginning of this week also saw other indices in the United States beginning to rally. The S&P 500, in particular, is flying high following its record close on Friday, January 19th, the first time it has done so since January 2022. The index recorded a 0.2% gain during Monday trading.
Analysts say that this may be attributed to optimism among investors regarding the state of the US economy and hopes that the Federal Reserve will bring interest rates down within this year. Fed officials, however, are surprisingly silent considering how several of them made comments in the past week regarding further changes to interest rate policies. No further comments may be heard from that end until the Fed convenes for its next policy meeting on Tuesday, January 30th.
Looking at the Tech Scene
All eyes, however, are currently on the tech industry as some of the biggest players in the scene are set to release their results from Q4-2023 this week, while others are on the lookout for a potential earnings surge brought about by investments in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.
Indeed, AI drove a recent surge among the shares of tech companies, dragging them up from a major drop at the beginning of the year, enabling stocks listed on the Nasdaq to rise by around 0.3%.
However, where the tech sector could be headed for the next several months will depend on the Q4 results of several major players, including streaming media service Netflix and electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, both of whom are set to release reports by the end of this week.
