US stock market close: Another big week of gains ends with a flourish

May 8, 2026
us-stock-market-close:-another-big-week-of-gains-ends-with-a-flourish

On the day:

  • S&P 500 +0.85%
  • Nasdaq Comp +1.7%
  • DJIA flat
  • Russell 2000 +0.75%
  • Toronto TSX Comp +0.6%

On the week:

  • S&P 500 +2.3%
  • Nasdaq Comp +4.5%
  • DJIA +0.2%
  • Russell 2000 +1.7%
  • Toronto TSX Comp +0.5%

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite hit fresh all-time highs today. A surprisingly strong U.S. jobs report—adding 115,000 jobs in April versus the 55,000 expected—overshadowed geopolitical fears, keeping investors heavily invested in the ongoing tech boom. This was the sixth straight week of gains, the longest run since Oct 2024.

AI infrastructure demand continues to fuel semiconductor stocks. Micron shares popped 10% today, while Qualcomm jumped 9%, logging its fourth consecutive day of gains. The broader semiconductor index soared as hyperscalers continue raising their capital expenditure guidance.

On the downside, cloud security provider Cloudflare took a massive hit today, tumbling 22%. The sharp drop came after the company issued a much weaker-than-expected Q2 sales forecast and announced it would be cutting approximately one-fifth of its global workforce.

Fluence Energy was one of the day’s biggest single-stock winners, surging nearly 40%. The energy storage company crushed its quarterly earnings report, on growing demand for grid-scale energy storage products.

Intel shares surged 14% following a Q1 earnings beat driven by a 22% jump in Data Center and AI revenue. Sentiment was further boosted by a major new foundry contract for Elon Musk’s Terafab Initiative and reports of preliminary manufacturing talks with Apple.

Akamai shares rocketed 28% higher after announcing a historic seven-year, $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure contract with a leading frontier AI company, reportedly Anthropic. This massive deal overshadowed the company’s solid Q1 earnings, highlighting Akamai’s growing role in powering enterprise AI workloads.

Nasdaq Composite, daily

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