Stocks Start the Month Strong, Closing at Fresh All-Time Highs

The stock market closed at fresh all-time highs, fueled by strong gains in AI and semiconductor stocks, including NVIDIA (NVDA), despite higher oil prices and renewed geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

Overall, S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 7,600, while NASDAQ increased 0.4% to 27,087.

Chart of the Day

Here is the one-year chart of Alphabet (GOOGL) as of May 4, 2026, when the stock was at $380.

Alphabet delivered staggering results with Google Cloud, as revenue accelerated to 63% year-over-year, versus 48% just one quarter earlier and 34% two quarters ago.

Backlog nearly doubled from three months earlier. Revenue from products built on Google’s GenAI products surged 800% year on year (YoY). Cloud revenue was led by an increase in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) across enterprise AI solutions, enterprise AI infrastructure, and GCP services.

Management said AI is becoming a key driver across its business, citing major advances in its Gemini AI ecosystem, including the broader rollout of Gemini 3.1 Pro and Gemma 4. Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro is powering conversational features in Search and the Gemini App, while Gemma 4 is its downloadable counterpart designed to run locally on phones and laptops.

GOOGL is part of our Growth Portfolio, Conservative Growth Portfolio, and Focus List. The stock is timely right now.

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