Wall Street rally holds strong as S&P 500 beats December record high
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A market rally in the US has continued with its top index smashing through a previous all-time high, while London’s FTSE 100 lagged behind European peers. New York’s S&P 500 index moved about 0.8% higher to surpass last month’s intra-day record high.
It follows the inauguration of Donald Trump as president on Monday, which has helped boost the share price of companies focused on technology and artificial intelligence (AI), which traders expect to be favoured under the new presidency. Netflix’s share price was also climbing more than a tenth after revealing it made record-high earnings over 2024 and had topped 300 million worldwide subscribers.
The Dow Jones index was also up about 0.3% by the time European markets closed. Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, said: “The market is rallying into Trump’s second presidency, as he proves the dominant driver of risk sentiment for global markets.
“Trump is also having a large impact on domestic stocks. Oracle, which will join forces with the US government to produce AI computing infrastructure, has seen its share price soar on Wednesday.”. She added that Netflix’s surging share price was “driven by record subscriber growth in the fourth quarter, and a strong outlook for 2025”.
Meanwhile, in London, the FTSE 100 closed 3.16 points lower, or 0.04%, at 8,545.13. Official statistics on Wednesday morning revealed that UK public sector borrowing stood at £17.8 billion in December – the highest level for four years. The FTSE was outperformed by European peers on Wednesday. In Paris, the Cac 40 climbed 0.86%, and in Frankfurt, the Dax rose 0.99%.
