Artificial intelligence euphoria hit a new level this week, as two chipmakers hit $1 trillion in stock market value.
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Driven by skyrocketing demand for chips that supply memory for AI, Micron Technology surged past the mark for the first time Tuesday. South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix also joined the trillion-dollar club Wednesday.
Their ascent has been rapid. Only 48 days earlier, Micron hit a $500 billion value. Its journey to the trillion-dollar milestone happened faster than those of major companies such as Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, Walmart and Tesla, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. SK Hynix’s shares have surged more than 200% this year.
Hitting the once-rare trillion-dollar mark is becoming more frequent in a market driven by insatiable demand for AI. Since Apple first broke the trillion-dollar level in 2018, 11 more U.S. companies have followed. Another one of the world’s biggest suppliers of memory, Samsung, also hit $1 trillion this month.
More AI-driven market growth is likely, Wall Street analysts say.
Predicting that earnings will grow by 24% this year, strategists at Goldman Sachs said half of that will come from companies that are “the beneficiaries of AI infrastructure investment.”
UBS analysts threw more fuel on the fire Tuesday morning, tripling their price target for Micron to $1,625 from $535 per share. Micron shares quickly surged 19%, making Tuesday its fifth-best day on record.
The stock continued to march higher Wednesday, rising another 2%.
Earnings also fueling the market
The market is also soaring on “earnings revisions, which are increasing for 2026 and 2027,” Yardeni Research founder Ed Yardeni said May 3.
Yardeni predicts that the S&P 500, which was at around 7,500 on Wednesday, will rally to 8,250 by the end of the year. His call is currently the highest year-end target of any Wall Street analyst. The investment firm Oppenheimer also raised its target recently, to 8,100. Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have also hiked their year-end S&P targets to 8,000.
The S&P 500, already up nearly 10% this year, would need to rally another 6% just to hit the lowest of those targets.
“Continued earnings growth should drive continued equity market upside,” Goldman Sachs chief U.S. equity strategist Ben Snider said in a note Tuesday evening.
“Fundamentally, earnings strength has been the key differentiator between the recent market run and similar narrow rallies in the past,” he added.
As earnings season winds down, companies in the S&P 500 have so far reported their highest profit growth since 2021, according to data from FactSet Research.
But again, the primary driver of earnings growth was the largest tech companies. “In aggregate, earnings reported by the ‘Magnificent 7’ companies exceeded estimates by 32.5%, compared to 16.6% for all S&P 500 companies,” FactSet analyst John Butters wrote. The so-called Magnificent Seven are Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.
But the coast is not entirely clear for the markets.
Snider warned that the outperformance of AI-linked stocks also “raises their hurdle going forward,” while the energy shock from the ongoing Iran war “threatens to create the conditions of disappointing growth and tightening financial conditions that have marked the ends of previous bull markets.”
Another possible obstacle for stocks: rising bond yields and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision June 17.
Currently, futures market traders see a 60% chance that the Fed will have to raise rates by the end of the year, which could put a dent in stocks and corporate profits.
