the techheavy nasdaq hit a 14month high friday largely driven by massive gains from a handful of the widely tracked tech index’s largest companies while the dow jones industrial average and sp 500 each hit key milestones of their own as optimism is aplenty on wall street the nasdaq composite closed at its highest level since april 21 2022 wiping out what was once as steep as a 40 loss last year as investors dumped ratesensitive tech stocks while the federal reserve hiked interest rates to their highest level since the mid2000s but largely resilient earnings and unfettered optimism about what artificial intelligence could mean for future bottom lines helped the nasdaq surge 27 so far this year far outpacing the sp 500 and the dow jones industrial average’s 12 and 2 yeartodate gains respectively buoying the nasdaq’s recovery are the megacap companies largely generating the biggest ai buzz chipmakers nvidia and amd and generative ai leaders alphabet and microsoft are each up more than 40 yeartodate the nasdaq’s milestone friday came amid a strong day overall for stocks as the sp and dow each gained more than 1 after government data revealed a strong labor market in fact the dow’s 700point gain marks its best day since january 6 the sp’s closing price of 4283 is its highest since last august though it remains about 10 below its peak achieved in 2022 nearly 4 trillion that’s how much market cap the seven biggest companies listed on the nasdaq apple microsoft alphabet amazon nvidia tesla and meta have gained in 2023 the sp is now at the same level it closed at march 22 2022 the first rate increase of the current fed hiking cycle noted bespoke investment group the cboe vix index a volatility metric which acts as a “fear gauge” for wall street sank nearly 6 friday to its lowest level since february 2020 shortly before pandemic lockdowns the us economy “is not showing strong signs” that a recession will come this year oanda analyst ed moya declared friday saying steady output and consumer spending is “shortterm good news for the stock market” the nasdaq is coming off of its worst year since 2008 after it crashed 33 losses that far outpaced the dow’s and sp’s fueling the tech investor fire was the november release of the viral microsoftbacked chatgpt ai chatbot which led to a spike in investments in generative ai developments and the hardware powering the technology these 7 tech stocks command almost 90 of the sp 500’s gains—signaling market rally may not be so healthy forbes