Stock Market LIVE: Palantir Powers Nasdaq and S&P 500 Rally Amid AI Optimism

In the stock market on Wednesday, AMD shares saw an increase of more than 7 percent after the firm announced a stock buyback of $6 billion that its board of directors approved.

"The expanded repurchase program underscores the Board’s confidence in AMD’s strategy, growth potential, and our continued ability to generate strong free cash flow," said CEO Lisa Su in a statement.

The U.S. dollar continued on its course downhill on Wednesday, losing in continuation for the second day amid concerns-easing inflation and calm down of global trade tensions.

The U.S. dollar index, DX-Y.NYB, which measures the dollar's performance against the basket of major currencies, fell to 100 by 0.41%. The weakness was predominantly fueled by a strengthening of the Japanese yen and the South Korean won against the U.S. dollar in early morning trading.

Inferring from several economic indicators forecasting lower inflation, market sentiment might well be turned, thus reconsidering the recent strength in the dollar.

Semiconductors stocks jumped upward Friday on favorable reaction to Nvidia's latest strategic action in the worldwide AI race. A rally never materialized in chip giant Nvidia (NVDA) until the company's landmark announcement of tie-up with Humain , the leading Saudi Arabian AI company, for building one of the world's largest AI data centers.

The deal marks an important advancement for Saudi Arabia's ambitious national AI strategy and conversely reflects the fast-growing global demand for HPC (high-performance computing).

Massive Deployment of AI Hardware

Per the contract, Nvidia will provide the new center with hundreds of thousands of its most advanced GPUs in the next five years to implement very large-scale AI training and inference workloads. In just the first phase, 18,000 Grace Blackwell GB300 Superchips will be deployed and interconnected through Nvidia InfiniBand networking technology .

This state-of-the-art architecture is designed for gargantuan AI processing workloads, with the power capacity of the center estimated at 500 megawatts—giving us an estimate of the magnitude of the facility and its importance within the global AI scene.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stressed that the partnership supports the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's vision of becoming a world leader in AI innovation. "We're proud to partner with Humain to help establish Saudi Arabia as a key hub for AI development," Huang said during a briefing.

Broader Industry Uplift

The announcement sent ripple waves throughout the semiconductors space, with AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) shares rising more than 2%, the speculation being that demand for AI chips was rising among players. Within this, AMD recently also joined an $80 billion U.S.-Saudi technology consortium , as was announced by the White House, showing increased ties between American tech firms and Middle Eastern capital.

INTC was up 2% as well after CFO David Zinsner reiterated the company's goal to break even on its foundry business by 2027—a goal investors seemed pleased with amid ongoing restructuring efforts.

Other big chipmakers benefitted from these positives as well. Silicon Laboratories (SLAB) gained 1.5%, boosted by its strong Q1 earnings and upbeat guidance, while industry giants like Broadcom (AVGO), Micron Technology (MU), Qualcomm (QCOM), Texas Instruments (TXN), Analog Devices (ADI), and ON Semiconductor (ON) also saw gains as confidence increased broadly across the industry.

Analyst Take

Market analysts attribute the rally not only to that headline-making deal but also to the resurgence of optimism related to enterprise AI spending and infrastructure build-out around the world.

"This is more than just a single deal—it signals a shift in how countries are positioning themselves for AI leadership," Morgan Lee , senior tech analyst at Horizon Capital, said. "The Middle East is becoming a critical player, and companies like Nvidia are at the forefront of enabling that transformation."

With governments and corporations pouring billions of dollars into AI development, the need for high-end semiconductors surely will not slow down anytime soon, giving chipmakers a serious tailwind heading into the second quarter of 2025.

Stock Performance Snapshot (as of market close):

Nvidia (NVDA): +6.2%
AMD: +2.4%
Intel (INTC): +2.1%
Silicon Labs (SLAB): +1.5%
Micron (MU): +1.8%
Qualcomm (QCOM): +1.3%

Palantir Technologies Inc., together with PLTR on NASDAQ, saw its share prices soaring huge and closing at a share price of $128.10 on May 13, 2025, an 8.14% increase over the previous day. Price appreciation was initially supported by a strong Q1 earnings report and an upward revision for full-year revenue guidance by Palantir.

📈 Q1 2025 Financial Highlights

Revenue Growth: Q1 revenue was reported at $883.9 million, representing a 39% growth year over year that was above analysts' expectation of $862.8 million.

U.S. Market Performance: Revenues from U.S. government sales grew by 45%, whereas commercial revenues in the U.S. soared by 71% year-over-year.

See also

S&P 500 Forecast: The Index Holds Its Breath — What’s Next? | Market Outlook

Indices

Full-year Guidance: The company has upped its revenue forecast for 2025 to a range of $3.89 billion-$3.90 billion from its previous forecast of $3.74 billion-$3.76 billion.

Operating Metrics: Adjusted operating income is forecast to be $1.711 billion to $1.723 billion, while adjusted free cash flow is forecast to be between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion.

🚀 Market Impact and Analysts' Sentiment

Making huge strides, Palantir is set to establish itself at the helm of AI and data analytics. The reason why this focus on AI-led solutions could have fuelled a double-digit climb in U.S. commercial revenues.

In fact, analysts are widely bullish on the stock. Price targets have already been raised for Palantir by at least nine brokerage houses, pushing the median target up to $96.46.

📊 Stock Performance Overview

Palantir has given a 69.38% return YTD and 511.75% returns in the last 12 months as of May 13, 2025.

An all-time high of $130.60 was set intraday, amid mount­ing confidence about the company's direction among investors.

Sources

• 24/7 Wall St.

• Reuters

• StocksToTrade

• StreetInsider.com

• Finance Charts

• StockInvest