Wall Street hit record highs this year: reports

Tech and AI stocks did well at the NY stock exchange. Pic/Getty Images

Wall Street hit record high after record high in 2023, a year investors had feared would be a washout as elevated interest rates threatened to grind the economy to a halt, media reports said. However, a resilient job market, robust consumer spending and easing inflation kept investor confidence high, helping propel all three indexes to double-digit gains.

S&P 500, the broadest measure of the US stock market, closed 0.28 per cent lower on Friday, leaving it just under 30 points away from a record-high close. It gained 24 per cent this year. It also notched its ninth-straight weekly gain - the longest streak since January 2004. This year has been much kinder to the market than last: The benchmark index fell by about 20 per cent in 2022.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq index was the year's biggest star. Although it was down 0.56 per cent Friday, closing at around 4769, it rose by 43 per cent in 2023 - its best performance since 2020. It remains about 1,000 points below the all-time high it reached in November 2021. It's been a strong year for supersized tech and AI stocks. Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla, known collectively as the ‘Magnificent 7,' soared well over 100 per cent in 2023.

43%
Percentage increase in the Nasdaq stock indice this year

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