Meta Platforms jumped 11.6% on Monday, driving a broad rally in AI-linked stocks that lifted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq while oil prices fell. Chipmakers Arm, Intel and AMD also surged as investors piled back into the artificial-intelligence trade.
Meta Platforms shares jumped 11.6% on Monday, powering a broad rally in AI-linked stocks that pushed Wall Street's major indices higher as oil prices slid. Investors piled back into the artificial-intelligence trade after a mixed performance last week, led by gains in communication-services and technology stocks.
The S&P 500 advanced 1.5% to 7,762.98 points, the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.1% to 27,083.37 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% to 52,028.28 points.
Meta's AI Push Fuels the Rally
Meta jumped after Wells Fargo raised its price target on the stock to $796, implying 19.6% upside from the previous close and citing progress in the company's AI initiatives. The move came ahead of Meta Connect 2026, the company's AI conference set for Wednesday and Thursday, where its Muse assistant is expected to take centre stage.
Separately, Meta's Muse assistant became the most downloaded free app on Apple's App Store, taking its gains to about 37% over the past month, according to the Financial Times. Jones Trading's Mike O'Rourke said: "Meta is being repriced as an AI leader."
Chipmakers Ride the AI Wave
Chip stocks tied to the AI trade also advanced. Arm gained 15.6% and Intel rose 11.7%, the top two percentage gainers on the Nasdaq, while AMD added 8.7% after briefly topping $1 trillion in market value for the first time. According to Vital Knowledge, agentic AI relies more on CPUs than GPUs for background tasks, creating a bullish scenario for AMD, Arm and Intel. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 4.7%, according to the Financial Times.
Oil Slide Eases Rate Worries
Brent crude tumbled 3.5% to $100.27 a barrel, down from around $110 a barrel last week, as Saudi oil exports rebounded to just over 4 million barrels per day in September from 2.4 million bpd in August, according to shipping analytics firm Kpler. The drop came despite intensifying fighting in Yemen between Iran-backed Houthi militants and Saudi-aligned forces over control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait shipping route.
The pullback eased worries over a global tightening cycle following interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan last week. Global bonds, which had been under pressure in recent days, rallied. The 10-year US Treasury yield fell 0.03 percentage points to 4.97%, having touched 5% for the first time since 2023 last week, according to the Financial Times.
Sources: Investing.com, Financial Times
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