S&P 500, Nasdaq rally to record highs on optimism about trade deals

STORY: U.S. stocks posted solid gains on Wednesday, with the Dow adding more than 1%, the S&P 500 climbing more than three-quarters of a percent and the Nasdaq gaining roughly six-tenths of a percent.

The S&P 500 has now climbed about 8% in 2025, while the Nasdaq has gained almost 9%.

Wednesday marked more record high closes for both.

A U.S. trade agreement with Japan helped lift the indices, and the European Union appeared to be headed toward a similar deal.

That's according to two European diplomats, who said an agreement could include a broad 15% tariff on EU imports.

Michael Landsberg is chief investment officer at Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth Management.

"The trade deal obviously is good news. I think what happens, I think there's a fear at some point that, will the President get deals done or will he be too hard a negotiator? The fact that he got a deal done with with Japan I think again portends well for what's going to happen with the EU. So I think this is a little bit of a relief rally where people are saying, Hey, we're gonna get some deals done. Again, I think China is going to be the last one to fall and I think that's an area where he's going to continue to work on that. But I think it shows that he can get some deals done when crunch time comes."

Stocks on the move Wednesday included Alphabet, which rose about 2% in extended trading after the Google parent beat Wall Street's second-quarter earnings estimates. The tech giant cited massive demand for its cloud computing services as it hiked its capital spending plans for the year to about $85 billion.

Also reporting after the close, Tesla... which posted its steepest decline in quarterly revenue in more than a decade, with a 12% fall. The EV maker is battling strong competition from cheaper electric vehicles and a backlash against CEO Elon Musk's political views.

Shares of Texas Instruments tumbled more than 13% after the semiconductor company's quarterly profit forecast pointed to weaker-than-expected demand for its analog chips and underscored tariff-related uncertainty.

And shares of GE Vernova surged more than 14.5% to an all-time high after the power equipment maker raised its revenue and free cash flow forecasts and beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit. GE Vernova has gained over 80% so far in 2025, with power consumption on track to hit record highs due to growing demand from AI and cryptocurrency data centers.