S&P 500 hits record intra-day high driven by chipmakers, megacaps

(Reuters) -The S&P 500 hit an intra-day record high on Friday for the first time in two years, powered by gains in chipmakers and heavyweight technology stocks on optimism around artificial intelligence (AI).

Erasing the last of a nearly 25% selloff that began in 2022, the widely followed U.S. stock market benchmark was last up 0.9% at 4,823.34 points, beating its previous intra-day of 4818.62 points recorded on Jan. 4, 2022.

Chipmakers, including Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, rallied to record highs after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing projected 2024 revenue growth of more than 20% on booming demand for high-end chips used in AI applications.

After surging about 24% in 2023, the S&P 500 has been nearly flat so far in 2024 as investors scaled back bets on how aggressively the Federal Reserve will cut U.S. interest rates this year.

Still, investor optimism about resilience in the U.S. economy and potential accretions from AI has buoyed markets.

The S&P 500 has not yet set a new record high close. Its highest ever closing was 4,796.56 points on Jan. 3, 2022.

The Nasdaq is also flat this year after a 43% jump in 2023. It remains down less than 6% from its record high of 16,212.229 points.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich, Sruthi Shankar, Amruta Kandekar, Johann M Cherian and Ankika Biswas; Editing by Pooja Desai and David Gregorio)