Tech resurgence: Nasdaq records 15.3% monthly surge in best performance since 2020 pandemic recovery
- Marijan Hassan - Tech Journalist
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Wall Street closed out an historic April as the Nasdaq Composite surged 15.3%, marking its strongest monthly gain since the initial post-COVID recovery in April 2020. The rally, fueled by a massive capital expenditure blitz in artificial intelligence and a resilient earnings season, pushed major tech indexes back to record territory despite global geopolitical tensions.
The S&P 500 followed suit with a 10.4% monthly increase, its most dominant performance since November 2020.
The "AI capex" bonanza
The primary engine behind the April rally was the sheer scale of investment in AI infrastructure. The "Big Four" hyperscalers - Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet - are now projected to spend a record $725 billion on AI-related capital expenditures in 2026 alone, a staggering 77% increase over last year.
Investors have largely shrugged off high interest rates, betting that this infrastructure boom will deliver a generational windfall. Alphabet stood out as a leader in the pack, jumping 34% in April following robust cloud growth and a new dividend announcement that signaled maturing profitability alongside its AI ambitions.
Semiconductors hit "absurd" highs
While software and cloud services gained ground, the semiconductor sector saw what some analysts described as "absolutely absurd" growth. The PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) soared 38.4% during the month.
Intel (INTC) was the standout winner of the S&P 500, with its stock price more than doubling (+114%) in April as its multi-year foundry turnaround began to show revenue growth far ahead of Wall Street expectations.
Memory giants Sandisk and Seagate both posted gains exceeding 70%, driven by an acute shortage of high-capacity memory required for AI data centers. AMD & Micron continued their parabolic runs, with AMD gaining 74% for the month as it challenged the high-end GPU market.
Market sentiment vs geopolitics
The rally represents a dramatic "V-shaped" recovery from the sell-off triggered by Middle East conflicts and soaring energy prices in late March. Analysts at Goldman Sachs noted that the market is currently "forward-looking," effectively pricing in a soft landing for the U.S. economy and a 40% contribution to EPS growth from AI-related investments.
"The tech sector is in total control of index returns yet again," said Charlie McElligott, an analyst at Nomura. "This rally has officially killed off the brief dispersion out of megacap tech into everything else. When things get volatile, investors fall back on the companies with the strongest balance sheets and the clearest growth runways."
A top-heavy triumph
Despite the record-breaking month for the indexes, the rally remained significantly "top-heavy." While 68% of S&P 500 stocks finished the month in the green, a select few AI-centric titans accounted for the majority of the total market cap gains. Retail and consumer discretionary sectors lagged behind, with companies like Nike and Charter Communications seeing double-digit declines as the market increasingly bifurcates between "AI haves" and "legacy have-nots."
As May begins, traders are watching the VIX (Volatility Index), which has dropped to a two-week low below 17, suggesting that for now, Wall Street is content to ride the wave of the silicon-powered bull market.
