Happy birthday to the bull market, which just turned four.
Monday marks the fourth anniversary of the current bull market, with the S&P 500 having climbed nearly 120% since its closing low on Oct. 12, 2022 — an extraordinary run that reflects Wall Street's faith in the transformative power of artificial intelligence.
Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, investors have hungered for all things related to the AI trade, with the stocks most tied to the build-out — the so-called "picks and shovels" — flying to whole new stratospheres because of the technology.
Nvidia, the poster child for the revolution that was formerly best known for the graphics cards it built for high-end video games, is now a roughly $5.5 trillion company; it passed the $1 trillion market cap for the first time in 2023. Micron Technology, another beneficiary, passed the $1 trillion market cap for the first time this May.
Those moves have helped the stock market climb a wall of worry in the intervening years, including in 2026. The S&P 500 just last week topped 7,800 for the first time, and remains near records, thanks in large part to its heavy allocation toward tech. About 40% of the broader index is in tech stocks.