Market Close: Tech Stocks Regain Footing, Amazon's Bullish Day, New Apple Event 10-19-2026

0:02I'm Peter Schacknow, CNBC. Stocks started the week on a positive note, particularly the Nasdaq, which got hit hard last week because of worries related to artificial intelligence-related companies. The Dow did end the day lower by 36 points to close at 51 ,966. The S &P 500, however, added four-tenths of a percent, or 31 points, and the Nasdaq rallied 291 points, or 1.1%. The Nasdaq was coming off a more than 2 % drop Friday, as well as its largest weekly loss since the end of June. One of the key concerns last week was a slowing revenue growth rate for AI company Anthropic. But Gil Loria, head of technology research at DA Davidson, says growth is still growth.

0:45That means AI investments are going to continue. And that's good for your Microsoft, your Amazon and Google, because they're going to be the ones serving it. And they're going to be buying chips, primarily from NVIDIA, Broadcom, Micron. The good news is that all the companies I just listed are trading close to a market multiple or below. That's the AI trade. Which model ends up winning is actually of little consequence. Last week's sell-off led some investors to speculate that the stock market was in for a rough period. But Katie Stockton, managing partner at Fairlead Strategies, says the technical indicators she watches are holding up.

1:18We don't have breakdowns with the downdraft that we just saw. So thankfully, support levels are still intact. So it feels all right to us, albeit a little tenuous just given that loss of breath and momentum. We would say that there has been a seasonal correction, even though it doesn't really show in the major indices. And if you look at something like the percentage of stocks above their 50 days, I mean, that got down to 21 percent, which is what we saw at the March low. Amazon was one of the day's top performers, jumping more than 5 percent. The stock was rated a top pick by Morgan Stanley, which says investors are underappreciating the growth potential of the Amazon Web Services unit.

1:56The iShares Semiconductor ETF ended the day up 2%. That ended a nine-day losing streak for the chip-focused investment, with semiconductors among the stocks swept up in the artificial intelligence-related sell-off. Apple has announced an October 28th event in Los Angeles called Pro & Tell. A new touchscreen MacBook Pro is expected to be among the products announced at that event. Peter Schachnow, CNBC.

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