Nasdaq Composite Rises on Cautious Optimism on Tech Tailwinds but Iran Tensions Loom

The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is trading successful the greenish astatine Friday's open, with the scale starring the large averages arsenic bequest chipmaker Intel's blowout net study reignites the AI-infrastructure trade. The Nasdaq is drafting spot from mega-cap tech and melodramatic single-stock moves, adjacent arsenic traders show the Strait of Hormuz. For the week, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is up fractionally, buoying its YTD returns to astir 5.5%.

The macro backdrop is unsettled. "Markets are entering the last time of the trading week successful a cautious temper arsenic U.S.-Iran tensions amusement nary signs of easing portion the Strait of Hormuz remains fundamentally closed," said Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid. WTI crude is sitting astatine astir $91 a barrel, disconnected an April 7 highest adjacent $115, and the VIX is adjacent 19, comfortably wrong the mean scope aft spiking supra 31 successful precocious March.

Beneath the index's moves, a mixed container of headlines kept investors connected edge. Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) is deepening its Amazon Web Services (AWS) partnership, deploying tens of millions of Graviton cores to powerfulness CPU-intensive agentic AI workloads similar reasoning, search, and multi-step task orchestration, cementing it arsenic 1 of AWS's largest Graviton customers. Yet the cost-cutting drumbeat continued: Nike (NYSE: NKE) is reportedly slashing 1,400 jobs, mostly from its exertion division, portion Meta is erstwhile again trimming headcount. Meanwhile, Beijing moved to restrict American concern successful cardinal home tech sectors, adding different geopolitical overhang. All of it kept the fear/greed needle twitchy, adjacent arsenic the broader portion held up.

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Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is the communicative of the morning, with shares up astir 28% premarket and connected way for levels not seen since the dot-com era. The chipmaker reported non-GAAP EPS of $0.29 connected gross of $13.58 billion, against statement of astir a penny, marking a sixth consecutive 4th supra expectations. Data Center and AI gross climbed 22% and Intel Foundry roseate 16%. CEO Lip-Bu Tan argued that the displacement toward agentic AI is "significantly expanding the request for Intel's CPUs and wafer and precocious packaging offerings." Guidance for Q2 gross of $13.8 cardinal to $14.8 cardinal and a caller multiyear Google partnership, positive Intel Xeon 6 being selected for NVIDIA's DGX Rubin NVL8, gave the portion different lift.