The S&P 500 surges to a record high as hopes about the economy — and Big Tech — grow

VPM | By David Gura

Published January 19, 2024 at 10:09 PM EST

The S&P 500 hit a record high on Friday, boosted by gains in technology share and by rising hopes about the economy.

The S&P 500 set a fresh record on Friday as shares of big tech companies rallied and as hopes about the economy continue to grow.

The index, a broad-based group of stocks that includes many of the world’s biggest and best-known companies, ended the day up 1.2%, to close at 4,839.81, surpassing a record it previously set in January 2022.

Stocks have been gaining momentum since last year, thanks in large measure by rising hopes about artificial intelligence. That has boosted shares of a small basket of stocks that have come to be known as the “Magnificent Seven,” including Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Apple, and Meta.

Economic hopes are also contributing to the gains.

The S&P 500 ended 2023 up by 24%, surprising many investors who started last year fearing the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign to fight high inflation would kickstart a recession.

Instead inflation has eased and the economy has proven much sturdier than expected, and Wall Street now expects the Fed will start cutting interest rates this year, even if there is still a lot of uncertainty about how soon that will happen.

The Fed will next meet at the end of the month, and it’s likely policymakers will hold interest rates steady, though investors are hoping to get more guidance on what they are thinking.

Investors have also cheered recent economic data, including better-than-expected retail sales numbers.

Meanwhile, a widely followed survey from the University of Michigan, released on Friday, showed a second consecutive monthly surge in consumer sentiment. That was another good omen for an economy that has proven to be far sturdier than expected.

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David Gura

Based in New York, David Gura is a correspondent on NPR's business desk. His stories are broadcast on NPR's newsmagazines, All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and he regularly guest hosts 1A, a co-production of NPR and WAMU.

Previously, Gura was a correspondent for NBC News and an anchor for MSNBC. His reporting aired on NBC Nightly News and TODAY, and MSNBC's dayside and primetime programs, including The 11th Hour, Deadline: White House and MTP Daily.

Gura travels widely across the United States and around the world. In recent months, his reporting has centered on the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. In Texas, he covered a surge in cases that strained Houston's hospitals. On the eve of an eviction crisis in Oklahoma, Gura profiled people who had waited months for jobless benefits.

He has anchored special coverage, often from the field. During Hurricane Dorian, he broadcasted live from the Outer Banks in his home state of North Carolina. Gura reported from Virginia Beach, Virginia, after a mass shooting at the city's municipal complex, and from El Paso, Texas, after an attack on shoppers at a Walmart Supercenter. After a gunman targeted the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation, Gura anchored MSNBC's coverage from Pittsburgh.

For almost two years, he hosted Up with David Gura on MSNBC, a lively roundtable that aired on Saturday and Sunday mornings, featuring a motley group of guests, including lawmakers, reporters, columnists, strategists, actors and comedians. During the 2020 primary, Gura interviewed many of the Democratic presidential candidates, and he took the show on the road to the Texas Tribune Festival.

Before he joined NBC News and MSNBC, Gura was a correspondent for Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio, and a contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He co-anchored Bloomberg Surveillance, the network's flagship morning program, and after the 2016 election, he launched Bloomberg Markets: Balance of Power, which focused on the intersection of politics and policy.

Previously, Gura was a senior reporter for Marketplace, the public radio business and economics program, and its primary back-up host. From the organization's Washington bureau, he covered budget battles, showdowns and shutdowns and the implementation of financial reform, and he also spent a lot of time on the road, looking at how legislation and regulations affect Americans beyond the Beltway.

Gura's writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Columbia Journalism Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review. He has been recognized by the National Press Foundation, the National Constitution Center and the French-American Foundation, and he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

An alumnus of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Gura received his bachelor's degree in history and American studies, with honors, from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He also studied political science in La Paz, Bolivia, at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and the Universidad Católica Boliviana.

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