Wall St climbs 1% with chip stocks rallying before Nvidia results
By Sinéad Carew and Utkarsh
Hathi
Wed May 20, 2026
All eyes were in hot anticipation of Nvidia today and, even though the report was not coming in until after the bell, two other AI giants, Astera Labs and ARM Holdings, bolted up big time and that was more than enough to convince investors that Nvidia would soon be posting a similar result. Thus, all the indexes surged huge, both industrials and tech closing with big 3-digit gains. The war news, rate hikes and inflation have all gone on the backburner again and it’s once again all-out all-AI.