As 2025 draws to a close, Wall Street is riding a powerful wave of optimism, propelled by a resurgent tech sector and the seemingly unstoppable rise of Nvidia. On December 19, the three major U.S. stock indexes notched notable gains, with the Nasdaq Composite leading the charge, surging 1.31% to close at 23,307.62. The S&P 500 climbed 0.88% to 6,834.50, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.38%, ending at 48,134.89. These moves mark the second consecutive day of advances for all three benchmarks, a trend fueled by investor confidence in artificial intelligence and a flurry of headline-making corporate developments.
According to The Asia Business Daily and Economic Times, the day’s rally was spearheaded by Oracle, Nvidia, and Micron Technology—all of which notched impressive gains. Oracle’s stock soared 6.6% after news broke that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, had reached an agreement to establish a U.S. joint venture with Oracle, private equity fund Silver Lake, and MGX (a vehicle backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund). This investor consortium will control a 50% stake in the new entity, while ByteDance will retain 19.9%. The deal, reported by major outlets including CNBC, was widely seen as a strategic coup for Oracle, which had faced skepticism earlier in the week after losing a key backer for a major data center project.
“The TikTok acquisition is a great deal for Oracle, bringing in significant additional revenue,” commented analysts at Evercore ISI, as cited by The Asia Business Daily. The market responded enthusiastically, with Oracle’s shares surging and sentiment across the tech sector turning bullish. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index leapt 2.98% on the day, reflecting broad-based enthusiasm for AI and semiconductor stocks.
Nvidia, the undisputed juggernaut of the AI revolution, added 3.93% to its already staggering market cap—having crossed the $5 trillion mark just two months prior, as reported by Market Minute. The catalyst? Reports that the Trump administration was considering allowing Nvidia to export its advanced H200 AI chips to China, albeit with a catch: a 25% revenue-sharing fee paid directly to the U.S. Treasury. This so-called “China Fee” was hailed by institutional investors as a pragmatic middle ground, unlocking a lucrative new revenue stream for Nvidia while addressing national security concerns.
“The kind of onslaught of issuance from some of the hyperscalers, some of the AI trades, could weigh on markets into 2026,” said Tom Garretson, senior portfolio strategist at RBC Wealth Management, in an interview with CNBC. “But again, these are kind of some of the best-rated companies in terms of credit qualities. They obviously have the capacity to ramp up debt to finance some of this stuff.” He added, “We’re still counting on some of the capex spend kind of supporting a broader or probably better growth backdrop.”
Micron Technology, another key player in the AI supply chain, surged 6.99% on the day after issuing a strong revenue forecast for the current quarter—extending a rally that had seen the stock jump 10% the previous day. Micron’s position looks increasingly robust as it samples 12-high HBM4 memory modules, positioning itself to capture a larger share of Nvidia’s forthcoming Rubin platform production cycle.
Other semiconductor stocks saw impressive gains as well: Broadcom climbed 3.18% and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) jumped 6.15%. Palantir, the AI data analytics firm, rose 4.14% after signing a major contract with the U.S. Navy to help address submarine construction delays—a deal first reported by Bloomberg on December 9.
Yet, not every big name participated in the rally. Nike shares tumbled 10.5% after the company reported a sharp decline in revenue in its Greater China market during the fiscal second quarter, blaming tariff increases for eroding gross margins. Tesla and Meta also posted slight declines, bucking the broader tech trend.
Meanwhile, Coupang, the Korean e-commerce giant, rebounded by 2.25%, snapping a nine-session losing streak. The stock was buoyed by news that the U.S. government had cited Coupang in its criticism of the Korean government’s treatment of U.S.-listed companies, a factor seen as contributing to the stock’s turnaround.
Behind the scenes, the mechanics of the market remained calm despite it being “quadruple witching day”—when stock index futures and options, as well as individual stock futures and options, all expire simultaneously. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX) fell 1.96 points, or 11.62%, to 14.91, indicating a subdued risk environment.
Looking at the macro picture, the CME FedWatch Tool suggested a 77.9% probability that the U.S. Federal Reserve would keep interest rates unchanged in January 2026. This expectation of stable monetary policy has added further fuel to the ongoing “Santa Rally,” a year-end phenomenon where stocks historically trend higher.
Zooming out, Nvidia’s influence on the market is hard to overstate. As Market Minute highlights, the company’s Blackwell architecture is now the gold standard for AI infrastructure, with around 1,000 racks shipping weekly to data centers worldwide. The Blackwell B200 and GB200 systems offer a staggering 25-fold reduction in total cost of ownership compared to their predecessors, driving record fiscal performance for Nvidia. The company’s net margins remain above 50%, a testament to the fundamental shift in tech sector economics driven by AI.
With the Trump administration’s decision to allow H200 chip exports to China—albeit with the “China Fee”—Nvidia has recaptured market share in the East while providing the U.S. government with a new, non-tax revenue stream. The company’s next act is already in motion: the Rubin platform, set to launch in early 2026, will leverage TSMC’s 2nm process technology and promises a 3.3x performance improvement over Blackwell Ultra. TSMC’s CoWoS packaging capacity is booked solid through the end of 2026, underscoring the insatiable demand for Nvidia’s hardware.
Yet, challenges remain. The supply of HBM4 memory could become a bottleneck, and the market will be watching closely for signs of “AI fatigue” among enterprise customers. Rivals like AMD and custom silicon from Amazon and Alphabet are nipping at Nvidia’s heels, but the company’s hardware-software ecosystem—anchored by CUDA and InfiniBand—remains a formidable moat.
As 2026 approaches, all eyes are on Nvidia’s ability to maintain its blistering pace of innovation and supply chain execution. If it succeeds, the tech rally that began in 2023 may have plenty of room left to run, keeping the “green giant” at the center of the global digital economy.
