Tech Giants Lead Market Surge As Dow Blue Chips Stall; Microsoft Hits New Highs While Bitcoin Rallies: The Week In The Markets

Wall Street's tech giants continued to extend gains in the week following the Federal Reserve's November meeting.

The Nasdaq 100 again outperformed other major indexes, supported by the Magnificent 7 , including AI pioneers and high-tech stocks such as Apple Inc. AAPL , Microsoft Corp. MSFT , Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL , Amazon Inc. AMZN , Meta Platform Inc. META , NVIDIA Corp. NVDA and Tesla, Inc. TSLA

Blue-chip Dow stocks fell while small-cap stocks fell, recouping more than half of the previous week's gains. The energy sector covered by the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund XLE was once again the worst performer.

Microsoft hits all-time high: The tech giant hit a new high of more than $367 per share on Friday, cementing its position as a big winner in artificial intelligence. Microsoft's market capitalization is currently $2.73 trillion, just $150 million behind Apple's.

Bitcoin surpasses $750 billion market cap and is now worth more than Tesla: Bitcoin BTC/USD records its fourth consecutive week of gains SEC debates in grayscale over request to turn its GBTC fiduciary product into a fake exchange of Bitcoin added - business products. Meanwhile, the value of all Bitcoins in circulation has exceeded $750 million, surpassing Tesla's market capitalization.

BlackRock Launches Ethereum ETF: BlackRock Inc. On Thursday BLK, the world's largest asset management firm, expressed interest in launching an Ethereum ETH/USD exchange-traded fund, a bullish sign for the digital asset sector .

Fed Chair Powell ends early rate cuts, ending stocks' winning streak: Fed Chair Jerome Powell's relatively subdued speech on Thursday ended the U.S. stock market's longest winning streak in two years. Investor expectations regarding the number of rate cuts in 2024 have decreased slightly.

Economic Uncertainty Affects Forecasts for 2024: Popular investment firms released their economic forecasts for 2024 this week. While Goldman Sachs continues to forecast a higher-than-consensus growth rate for the U.S. economy, Wells Fargo offers a more pessimistic view.

Walt Disney Announces Third Quarter Results, Morgan Stanley Praises: The Walt Disney Company DIS reported fourth quarter revenue of $21.24 billion, up 5% year-over-year, despite falling short of expectations of street television. The company's earnings of 82 cents per share beat the Street consensus estimate of 70 cents per share. Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne reiterated his overweight rating on the stock.

What to watch next week : All eyes will be on the October Consumer Price Index report, which is expected to be released Tuesday. Economists expect core inflation to remain stable at 4.1% annually.

Wednesday's data highlights include the Producer Price Index and Retail Sales. Additionally, several Federal Reserve speakers are expected to provide guidance throughout the week.

Upcoming earnings to watch: US large-cap companies Home Depot Inc. will report earnings next week. Tuesday HD , Wednesday Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO and Walmart Inc. Thursday WMT and Applied Materials Inc. MOTHER

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