Nasdaq Hits Record 20,000 as AI Giants Tesla and Alphabet Lead the Charge

Nasdaq all-time-high: AI continues to play its magic card even in the final month of 2024. The Wall Street witnessed major tech stocks like Tesla and Google's parent company Alphabet reaching new heights this week. The Nasdaq Composite Index surpassed the 20,000-point point-mark on Wednesday.

But more than AI driving the stock prices upward, it was the Trump card behind the surge.

And ofcourse, the expectations of a potential rate cut by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell added to the momentum.

On Wednesday, the Nasdaq composite index concluded the day at 20,034 level, up by nearly 2 per cent or 347 points. The index had touched the 19k level mark in the November period.

Wall Street's darling, Nvidia also witnessed a surge of over 3 per cent, but remained below its all-time-high level. Billionaire Elon Musk-owned luxury EV brand increased by nearly 6 per cent to conclude at $424 price level on Wednesday.

But for Sundar Pichai's Google, the tech giant that has been under intense scrutiny over antitrust issues, optimism levels remained sky-high.

Good Days for Google?

Alphabet witnessed a surge of more than 5 per cent on Nasdaq and concluded Wednesday's trading session at $ 196.71 price level.

The broader uplift in investment sentiment came after the US President-elect Donald Trump appointed Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to head the consumer protection and antitrust agency, replacing Lina Khan.

Khan had been at the forefront of the antitrust case against the tech giant, challenging its monopoly in the search space.

While Google was the only big tech firm facing the scrutiny, several other big tech firms, including like Microsoft and Apple faced similar regulatory pressure from the FTC during her tenure.

Additionally, the recent in-line CPI (Consumer price index) figure, albeit marginally high at 2.7 per cent, also added to the optimism. This was largely owing to two reasons. Firstly, the Wall street was already counting-in a slightly higher inflation figure and second was the heightening expectations around a potential interest rate cut.