Hello, I'm Eric Criscuolo, Market Strategist at the New York Stock Exchange, and this is Market Storylines. Every week, we’re here to keep you up to date on the key trends and events driving global markets. As we record on Thursday afternoon, let’s dive into this week’s Market Storylines.

The Word of the Week is…records. This week saw the S&P 500 set new record highs for both its intraday and closing price. These broke the prior records that were set all the way back…last week. In fact the S&P has set new intraday and closing records in 5 of the past 6 weeks. The fun wasn’t just for the large caps though. The small cap Russell 2000 also set record intraday and closing highs this week.

Records weren’t just for the equity markets though. Gold continued to set new record highs as it smashed through $4,000 per ounce. There are several reasons for the relentless bid in gold: a general momentum chase, central bank buying activity, lingering inflation and growing debasement concerns, and an underweight allocation for most investors in the commodity.

Back to equities this week… The AI freight train continued on Monday when AMD and OpenAI announced a partnership which includes OpenAI purchasing 6 gigawatts of AI chips from AMD while receiving warrants to purchase up 160 million AMD shares, or 10% of the company. AMD surged over 20% on the news that day and continued to climb beyond that, currently up about 40% for the week. Remember, this is AMD, a $270 billion company coming into the week, not a small biotech that had great clinical results. That wasn’t the only AI news. Elon Musks’ xAI is reported to be close to raising $20B to acquire more AI infrastructure, including GPUs. And as has become standard procedure in these agreements, Nvidia will be part of the investment group, helping fund the purchase of its own chips. Oracle came under modest pressure this week after an article in The Information said the company’s business of renting out Nvidia chips was negatively impacting profitability, though the report’s veracity was debated. The circularity of the AI ecosystem, with suppliers investing in customers and everyone investing in each other, is coming under greater scrutiny, but not enough to derail the investment theme which has launched markets to record highs this year.

This isn’t just an AI podcast though. We also talk about prediction markets! NYSE parent company Intercontinental Exchange made headlines after announcing a partnership with Polymarket. ICE will invest up to $2 billion, become a global distributor of Polymarket data and work on future tokenization initiatives.

Looking at the sectors this week, Utilities is the winner so far, up about 2%. The group saw several analyst upgrades and continues to benefit from AI tailwinds despite interest rates moving higher this week. Tech was another leading sector, with AMD accounting for much of the strength, but hardware and software names were also generally higher. Semiconductor manufacturing equipment makers traded lower after a report from the Select Committee on China discussed how equipment companies have helped China develop its tech industry.

Real Estate was a lagging sector with residential and retail REITS broadly lower and treasury yields moving higher. Another laggard is the Materials sector, with the chemicals and packaging names broadly lower.

Moving on to more macro items…The government shut down continues and I have no idea when it will end. Private data will be leaned on more and more as government data keeps getting postponed.

Speaking of governments, in Japan the leading LDP party elected its new president Sanae Takaichi, who is expected to become Japan’s new, and first female, Prime Minister as well. She has a pro-growth and stimulus policy stance that’s expected to be positive for Japanese equities, which shot higher on the election, as did yields on government bonds while the Yen fell against the Dollar. Over in France, they lost yet another Prime Minister after Sébastien Lecornu resigned on Monday- France’s fourth prime minister in a little over a year. That has led to the Euro joining the Yen in weakening versus the Dollar.

Now, looking ahead to next week, earnings season will kick off once again, filling the hole left by the Yankees season coming to an end. As usual, it will be the major financial names leading the way. As for macro data, let’s just assume the government shutdown continues, shall we? We don’t expect to get weekly jobless claims, CPI or PPI. The NFIB Small Business, Empire and Philly Manufacturing surveys and Fed Beige Books should be available, as I turn my fandom attention to the Islanders and the Knicks.

Remember you can watch Market Storylines on TV.NYSE.com or on the NYSE YouTube Channel. You can also listen every Friday on the Inside the ICE House Podcast feed. Thanks for joining me. I’m Eric Criscuolo. We’ll talk to you again next week.