2026.5.8 US Stock Daily | Chip Stocks Devour the Entire Market, S&P and Nasdaq Extend Win Streak to Six

S&P 500 closed at 7,398.93, up 0.84%. Nasdaq finished at 26,247.08, up 1.71%. Dow landed at 49,609.16, up just 0.02%—essentially flat. Both WSJ and Reuters confirmed the S&P and Nasdaq posted their sixth consecutive weekly gain, with both setting fresh all-time closing records. VIX at 17.19. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 3bp to 4.36%, the 2-year dropped to 3.88%.

Semiconductors sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Tech sector ETF XLK surged 3.44%. AMD exploded 11.44% to close at 455.19, then tacked on another 1.35% after hours to 461.32—bulls showed zero interest in taking profits. Bloomberg’s lead headline set the tone: “Stocks Hit Record High on Jobs as Chipmakers Surge.” MarketWatch ran a dedicated piece on AMD and Micron’s dominance: “AMD, Micron shares surge on a big day for chip-sector outperformance.” Outside tech, 6 of 11 sectors closed red—financials down 0.60%, healthcare down 0.85%, utilities down 0.89%. The Dow’s flat finish is the clearest portrait of how narrow this rally is. Strip out chip stocks and the market barely moved.

The catalyst was the April jobs report. Nonfarm payrolls added 115,000, well above expectations, with unemployment holding steady at 4.3%. The real story was wages: growth came in moderate with no sign of overheating, defusing fears of a wage-inflation spiral. The 10-year yield actually fell 3bp—counterintuitive on the surface, but entirely logical: the economy isn’t cracking, inflation isn’t accelerating, and the Fed can stay put. The 2-year yield sliding to 3.88% confirmed the short end is pricing in “no rush to cut, but no hikes either.” The LA Times headline captured it plainly: “Stocks rise to records after a solid jobs report overshadows higher oil prices.” Strong jobs plus cool wages—that’s the most comfortable combination the market can get.

QQQ closed at 711.23, up 2.34%, on volume of 44 million shares. The degree of crowding into chip names was more extreme than any single session in recent months. NewsNow data showed the semiconductor index up 4.9%, with the IT sector alone gaining 2.74% and hitting a record closing high of 6,573.22. AMD traded 57.81 million shares—the epicenter of this buying frenzy.

Zoom out, and the S&P and Nasdaq have now rallied for six straight weeks, riding what’s been a near-uninterrupted uptrend over the past month-plus. Concentration alone isn’t necessarily a problem, but it means the moment a crack appears in the chip narrative, there’s no second leg to pick up the slack.

A few signals from the periphery. WTI crude at 94.68, down a marginal 0.14%. No major commercial vessels have transited the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours. Polymarket puts the probability of a permanent US-Iran peace deal before end of May at 36%, with a 28% chance the Strait returns to normal traffic by then. Oil hasn’t spiked further but hasn’t pulled back either—the market is waiting for a clear direction. The dollar index slipped to 97.84. Offshore yuan gained roughly 340 pips on the week to 6.7971, approaching its February 2023 high. Cerebras plans to file for its IPO next Thursday—if it goes through, it’ll be the biggest AI-sector listing of the year.

Next week’s CPI and PPI are the dividing line. If inflation stays tame, the 10-year could test the 4.20% support level, and the chip stock party keeps going. If CPI comes in hot, yields snap back above 4.50%, and the current structure of tech carrying the entire market starts to look fragile. After six weeks of gains, what this rally needs most is for nothing to go wrong.