US Stock Market Today: Nasdaq Edges Higher As Alibaba's AI Bet Lifts Sentiments

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, along with S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average edged higher in early trade on Wednesday, as Alibaba's big AI bet has lifted the sentiment around tech stocks.

Nasdaq Composite opened 0.32% higher to trade at 22,645.91, while the wider index, S&P 500, opened 0.19% higher to trade at 6,669.25; and Dow Jones was trading 0.21% up at 46,390.05.

The ADR of Alibaba Group Holding jumped nearly 9%.

Earlier on Wednesday, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. pledged to amp up spending in its artificial intelligence initiatives.

In the early minutes of trading, five of the 11 sectoral indices were trading in red. Real estate, communication services and information technology were among the drags as opposed to consumer discretionary and energy sectors which led the gains.

Intel Corp., APA Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. were amongst the gainers in early trade, whereas Oracle Corp., Adobe Inc., and Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. were among the stocks that slipped. Intel's stock rose 4% to trade at $30.42 while on the other hand, Oracle dipped more 3.35% lower to trade at $303.26.

As the US market opened, spot gold was little changed at $3,762.39 an ounce. Crude oil prices rose, with the Brent crude trading 1.35% higher at $68.54 per barrel.

The Bloomberg Dollar Index rose 0.5%, with the British Pound falling 0.7% to $1.3438 and the Japanese yen also slipped 0.7% to 148.71 per dollar.

Bitcoin, the largest traded cryptocurrency, rose 1% to $113,086.01