Wall Street advanced on Wednesday, notching a partial rebound from a three-day losing streak as investors searched for deals among stocks and sectors that might have been oversold amid recent risk-off moves.
All three major U.S. stock indexes gained ground, with the small-cap Russell 2000 .RUT outperforming its larger-cap peers, rising 1.1%.
On the sector level, airlines .SPCOMAIR, gold and silver miners .XAU and regional banks .KRB were the frontrunners, while software and services .SPLRCIS, seen as potential victims of AI disruption, underperformed on the day.
The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index .SOX, which has powered much of the stock market's gains so far this year but has lost nearly one-fourth of its value since late June, was on the rise, with chipmaker Broadcom AVGO.O expected to deliver second-quarter results after the bell.
Nvidia NVDA.O, the chipmaker at the forefront of the AI wave, rose 3.2%, while Micron MU.O and Qualcomm QCOM.O gained 2.4% and 2.0%, respectively.
"The war is continuing longer than anyone hoped, and when it ends, energy will cool and inflation won't be as much of an issue," said Lauren Cassidy, chief investment officer at Founders 100 ETF in Dallas. "At the same time, we just had a record earnings season, with wonderful fundamentals being driven by the accelerating adoption of AI."
"AI adoption is still in the very early innings and it's just now accelerating," Cassidy added. "We could see exponential growth from here."