Dow Clears 49,000 as AI’s “Data Deluge” Ignites a Memory-Stock Melt-Up

Wall Street kept the party going: the Dow closed above 49,000 for the first time as CES-fed AI optimism powered a brutal rally in storage and memory names. Energy, meanwhile, sobered up fast as the Venezuela storyline met… reality.

The closing tape: records again, with a different engine

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finally crossed the psychological 49,000 mark, while the S&P 500 printed another record close (+0.62%) The Nasdaq Composite joined the celebration (+0.65%).

The part worth highlighting: this wasn’t just “mega-cap or nothing.” We got a real push from a very specific corner of the market and that corner is spelled SSD (the flash storage used in PCs, servers, and increasingly AI data centers).

CES gave AI a new headline… and storage stocks took it personally

CES headlines leaned heavily into next-gen compute. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang essentially told the world the Rubin platform is in full production and paired that with announcements around autonomy tooling/models like Alpamayo. Nvidia (NVDA | -0.47%) still finished slightly red, but the second-order trade was the real story.

If Rubin needs more memory and storage, markets immediately translated that into: “Buy the shovel sellers."

That’s how you get:

• Sandisk (SNDK | +27.56%) going vertical, its biggest single-day pop since early in its post–spin-off life.

• Western Digital (WDC | +16.77%) lighting up the tape right beside it.

• Micron (MU | +10.02%) catching another upgrade-driven wave.

• Seagate (STX | +14.00%) reminding everyone that “data” is not just a cloud metaphor, it’s a physical supply chain.

And in big-cap land, Amazon (AMZN | +3.38%) did what Amazon does: quietly lift the indices while everyone argues about the more dramatic chart.

Energy: the Venezuela trade cooled off fast

Monday’s move in energy was about possibility: investors gamed out what a Venezuela reset could mean for supply chains and U.S. operators. Tuesday was about implementation risk, the less fun cousin.

Chevron (CVX | -4.46%) was the poster child for that mood shift. The debate isn’t “Is Venezuela important?” — it’s whether anyone can quickly and cleanly translate political shock into stable barrels and investable returns.

Downstream names were mixed-to-soft: Valero (VLO | -1.27%) gave back some of the prior enthusiasm.

And oilfield services weren’t spared either: Halliburton (HAL | -3.41%) fell, while SLB (SLB | -0.39%) was only slightly lower.

Macro pulse: services cooled, and Friday is circled in red ink

The services side of the U.S. economy grew at its slowest pace in about eight months, with the final S&P Global U.S. Services PMI at 52.5 (down from 54.1 in November).

That softness matters because it feeds the ongoing “how soon do rate cuts resume?” argument and it puts extra weight on the December jobs report due Friday, January 9, 2026.

The undercard: deals, biotech fireworks, and an AI-marketing boost

Away from the index records, a few single-name moves were loud enough to rattle windows:

• Vistra (VST | +4.05%) rose after announcing a roughly $4B deal for Cogentrix Energy, a reminder that “power demand” is becoming an investing theme again (thanks, data centers).

• OneStream (OS | +28.38%) surged after agreeing to a $6.4B take-private deal with Hg.

• Zeta Global (ZETA | +9.83%) jumped after announcing a strategic partnership with OpenAI to support its AI agent, Athena.

• And Alumis (ALMS | +95.31%) basically teleported higher on strong Phase 3 psoriasis data and FDA-path commentary.

My takeaway heading into the next session

AI remains the market’s favorite excuse to pay up, but Tuesday showed something more actionable: the trade is broadening across the AI supply chain, and storage/memory is having its moment.

Energy is headline-driven and twitchy. If you’re trading it, treat it like a live wire, because it is.

Friday’s jobs report (Jan 9) is the next macro “permission slip.” Until then, traders will keep playing offense as long as the data doesn’t force them into defense.

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Kristoff - ChartMill

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