A broadcast of US President Donald Trump is shown on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. [Getty Images]
A broadcast of US President Donald Trump is shown on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. [Getty Images]

US stocks closed higher across the board Thursday, with semiconductor shares leading the charge despite ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran. Investor sentiment got a boost from Micron's announcement of a sweeping domestic investment plan and Meta's disclosure of its own AI chip development initiative.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 139.02 points, or 0.27 percent, to close at 52,487.41 on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday. The S&P 500 gained 60.93 points, or 0.81 percent, to finish at 7,543.64, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 336.24 points, or 1.30 percent, to end at 26,206.89.

Semiconductor stocks drove the advance. Micron surged 4.5 percent after announcing plans to invest more than $250 billion in US production facilities and related infrastructure through 2035 to meet growing AI demand. Meta rose 4.7 percent after unveiling its plan to produce its own AI chips.

SanDisk jumped 7.59 percent, Broadcom gained 3.19 percent and Lam Research climbed 6.00 percent.

Seo Sang-young, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, said the announcement of $250 billion in total investment for US semiconductor production and supply chain expansion — along with an additional up to $3 billion in supply chain spending — quickly lifted sentiment across the memory chip sector. "Investors interpreted this not simply as an increase in capital expenditure, but as a signal that AI memory demand will persist over the long term," he said.

News that SK hynix's US American depositary receipt offering drew orders exceeding seven times the available allocation also helped lift sentiment toward semiconductor investments.

Not all tech names participated in the rally — Nvidia fell 0.66 percent and Alphabet declined 0.94 percent, highlighting clear divergence among individual stocks.

Oil prices reversed course after a one-day gain. Brent crude for September delivery settled at $76.30 a barrel, down 2.20 percent from the previous session, while West Texas Intermediate for August delivery fell 1.96 percent to $72.08 a barrel.

The pullback in crude was attributed in part to inflation concerns flagged in the Federal Reserve's June FOMC minutes, released Thursday, and to China's June producer price index posting its steepest year-on-year rise in four years, which heightened worries about slowing oil demand.

Spot gold prices rose 1.1 percent to $4,121.67 per ounce as persistent geopolitical uncertainty continued to support safe-haven demand.


moon@heraldcorp.com