Nasdaq Hits Record High on Meta Muse: Which Chip Stocks Surged Double Digits

The Nasdaq Composite closed on 22 September 2026 with a gain of 2.26 percent at a new record high of 27,122.09 points. The driver of the technology rally was the success of Meta's AI agent "Muse," which marked a paradigm shift in AI infrastructure and delivered double-digit gains to chip stocks with a CPU focus.

Meta Muse dominates app store and boosts stock price

Meta's AI agent Muse reached the top of the US iPhone app charts less than two weeks after its debut on 9 September 2026 and displaced OpenAI's ChatGPT in total downloads. The rapid user acceptance caused Meta's stock to rise by over 11 percent on 21 and 22 September – the steepest daily gain since April 2025. The company added approximately 190 billion US dollars in market capitalization as a result.

Meta announced plans at the same time for a new undersea cable between the US and France. The announcements came immediately before the Meta Connect 2026 on 22 and 23 September, where further AI news was expected. Although Amazon restricted Muse's access to its e-commerce platform, investor sentiment remained largely positive and weighted the download momentum more heavily than individual platform conflicts.

Chip stocks with double-digit gains

The semiconductor sector benefited disproportionately from Muse enthusiasm. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 4.3 percent. CPU-focused chip designers posted significantly stronger gains than GPU manufacturers:

• Intel rose 12.14 percent
• AMD gained 10 percent and reached a market capitalization of over one trillion US dollars for the first time in company history
• Arm Holdings gained 17 percent
• Nvidia rose 2.3 percent

The Nasdaq 100 climbed 2.15 percent and came within less than 300 points of the June record high of 30,762 points. The S&P 500 closed with a gain of 1.55 percent.

Paradigm shift in AI infrastructure

Agentic AI applications – software that performs complex tasks over extended periods and interacts with users – require not only the computing power of graphics processing units (GPUs) for training large models, but also central processing units (CPUs) for inference. This infrastructure need differs fundamentally from previous AI workloads and is shifting investment flows in the semiconductor market.

The price reaction shows how quickly investors adjust their assessment of the AI value chain. While Nvidia, as the dominant GPU provider, continued to gain, CPU manufacturers posted significantly stronger percentage gains. AMD's market capitalization exceeded the one trillion US dollar mark for the first time.

Rally despite restrictive monetary policy

The tech rally took place despite the Federal Reserve reaffirming its hawkish stance and warning of "painful" measures to fight inflation. AI sentiment proved stronger than macroeconomic concerns. Bitcoin simultaneously exceeded the 86,000 US dollar mark, reaching an eight-month high.

On Thursday, a meeting between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China's Vice Premier He Lifeng for trade talks was expected. A preparatory meeting had already taken place.