Nvidia leads the US stock market near its all-time high

Trader William Lawrence works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] New York (AP) — The U.S. stock market is rising on Wednesday, led by its most influential stock, Nvidia. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% and pulled within 1.1% of its all-time high set late last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 285 points, or 0.6%, as of 1:24 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% higher.Nvidia climbed 2.3% after Meta Platforms announced a long-term partnership where it will use millions of chips and other equipment from Nvidia for its artificial-intelligence data centers. “No one deploys AI at Meta’s scale,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. Because his company is the most valuable on Wall Street, Nvidia’s stock was the single most powerful force pulling the S&P 500 higher.That performance demonstrated the upside of AI development for the U.S. stock market. But investors have also focused on the potential downsides recently, which has led to sharp swings for Wall Street. Worries are rising, for example, about how much companies like Meta are spending on AI and whether they can possibly make back their huge investments through higher profits and productivity in the future. Meta’s stock fell as much as 1.7% before bouncing back to a gain of 0.3%. Another big worry is that if AI succeeds in creating tools to do complicated tasks more cheaply, companies in industries as far flung as software and legal services and trucking logistics may see their businesses get undercut. That has pushed investors to suddenly and aggressively punish stocks of companies seen as under threat, and analysts have likened it to a “shoot first-ask questions later” mentality. Several profit reports from companies helped to lift stocks Wednesday. They continued what’s been a strong reporting season for the big U.S. companies in the S&P 500. Cadence Design Systems climbed 9.5% after delivering both profit and revenue for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. CEO Anirudh Devgan credited what he called “the essential nature of Cadence’s engineering software,” even as investors worry about AI threatening to remake the industry. Analog Devices rose 2% after likewise topping analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue. The chip company said it saw record orders during the quarter for its data center business. They helped offset a 5.4% drop for Palo Alto Networks. The cybersecurity company reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it gave profit forecasts for the current quarter and the remainder of its fiscal year that fell short of their estimates.In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher ahead of the afternoon’s release of minutes from the latest meeting of the Federal Reserve. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.08% from 4.05% late Tuesday. The Fed has put a pause on its cuts to interest rates, but many on Wall Street expect it to resume later this year. Details within the last meeting’s minutes could alter bets for when that could be. The widespread expectation is that it will come during the summer, after a new chair is scheduled to step in atop the Fed.