Shares of Nasdaq Inc. NDAQ advanced 1.40% to $89.83 Wednesday, on what proved to be an all-around positive trading session for the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index SPX rising 0.61% to 6,263.26 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA rising 0.49% to 44,458.30.

Key Points Semiconductor equipment supplier Lam Research has shot up impressively in the past three months, and it is still trading at an attractive valuation.The construction of semiconductor plants worldwide should be a tailwind for the company,

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Stocks closed lower on Wall Street, pulling the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite below the records they set a day earlier. The S&P 500 fell 0.3% Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave back 0.6%.

One stock that managed to outmaneuver the various headwinds torturing the markets throughout the year, however, is data mining specialist Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR). With shares soaring by 80% during the first six months of 2025, Palantir was the top-performing stock across both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100.

For mutual funds, investors send checks to the asset manager, which are invested by the portfolio manager at the end of the day. The investors get “units” of the fund at the end-of-day unit price, which is calculated from the “net asset value” of the fund.