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Stock Market Today: Nasdaq Composite Jump as NVIDIA (NVDA) & Oracle (ORCL) Soar on $500 Billion 'Stargate' Announcement

Eric Bleeker

Published: January 22, 2025 9:47 am

Last Updated: January 22, 2025 11:00 am

Live Updates

Stocks on the Move Today

10:57 am

Looking at a heat map of the market today, there’s a lot of red. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) is down 2%. Healthcare stocks are uneven with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) down 3% following earnings.

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) is one of the more notable gainers today. We hosted a live blog during their earnings yesterday, and it was full of enthusiasm. The headline is the company added nearly 19 million net subscribers last quarter. That’s a new record for Netflix, eclipsing its Covid peak.

Among technology stocks, the biggest gainers are concentrated in semiconductor equipment, networking, and electronic stocks. That is to say, stocks involved in the AI infrastructure buildout.

Earnings to Watch Today

9:37 am

Here are some earnings to watch this morning. We’ll provide updates on other market movers as the day progresses.:

• Amphenol (NYSE: APH): A key supplier for NVIDIA’s next-generation systems, Amphenol is up 4% in early trading after announcing earnings this morning. The earnings topped Wall Street expectations and most AI stocks are rallying today.
• GE Vernova (NYSE: GEV): Another stock that’s become an AI winner. GE Vernova supplies many of the power generation supplies that are in extreme demand thanks to the buildout of AI data centers. The company posted better-than-expected earnings but its revenue fell short today. Still, the stock is up 2% in early trading.

The market is rising strongly today, led by technology stocks. The Nasdaq Composite is seeing the strongest gains of major indexes:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: Up 42.15 (+.10%)
• S&P 500: Up 31.54 (+.49%)
• Nasdaq Composite: Up 194.71 (+1.02%)
• Russell 2000: Down 1.16 (-.05%)

The major theme driving technology stocks this morning will be ‘Stargate.’ Yesterday at the White House, a new company was announced with equity backing from OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX. Their goal is to spend $500 billion over the next four years building out AI infrastructure to cement America’s lead in the space.

Which companies will rally on Stargate today? Let’s dive deeper into the details.

Oracle and NVIDIA Headline Stargate

While Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) is providing equity funding, the announcement of ‘Project Stargate’ also included a list of technology partners that also includes Arm Holdings (Nasdaq: ARM), NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).

Looking at the companies from Stargate’s announcement, here’s how they’re trading at market open:

• Oracle: Up 10.2%
• NVIDIA: Up 2.71%
• Microsoft: Up 2.2%
• Arm Holdings: Up 3.3%

Clearly, thanks to the ambition of this announcement, every company involved is seeing a strong day. Another area to watch will be AI infrastructure stocks that supply networking, power management, and other supplies to data centers.

Stocks to watch today in that sector include:

• Vertiv: Up 6.5%
• Coherent: Up 2.7%
• Celestica: Up 7.5%
• Ciena: Up 5.2%

Simply put, just about any stock in the AI value chain is doing very well.

In the weeks to come, Wall Street will have to work out the details on just how impactful Project Stargate is. For example, how much of this spending was already planned and is simply being ‘branded’ into the project versus what percent is incremental spend that previously wasn’t projected?

Regardless, as we’ve been following in our AI Investor Podcast where we manage a $500,000 AI Portfolio in front of readers, following a series of breakthroughs in the AI space, 2025 looks set to be another fantastic year for AI stocks.

If you’re wanting to get more information on what AI stocks are the best to buy in the market, check out our newest episode where we detailed an AI market poised for more than twenty-five-fold growth.