Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Nov. 12, 2025 in New York City. <\/p>\n
Spencer Platt | Getty Images<\/p>\n
The divergence between the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> and Nasdaq Composite<\/a> on Wednesday stateside reinforces the suggestion that there are two markets operating in the U.S.: one of an artificial intelligence and another of “everything else.”<\/p>\n Not only did the Dow rise, it also secured its second consecutive record high and closed above the 48,000 level for the first time.<\/p>\n The index, which comprises 30 blue-chip companies, is typically seen as a marker of the “old economy.” That is to say, it is mostly made up of large, well-established companies driving the U.S. economy, such as banks, healthcare and industrials, before Silicon Valley became a mini sun powering everything.<\/p>\n And it was those stocks \u2014 Goldman Sachs<\/a>, Eli Lilly<\/a> and Caterpillar<\/a> \u2014 that lifted the Dow on Wednesday.<\/p>\n To be sure, new and flashy names, such as Nvidia<\/a> and Salesforce<\/a>, constitute the Dow too. But as the index is price-weighted, meaning that companies with higher share prices influence the Dow more, tech companies don’t exert as much gravity on it.<\/p>\n That’s in contrast to the Nasdaq, which is weighted by companies’ market capitalization, and dominated mainly by technology firms. The tech-heavy index fell as shares like Oracle and Palantir slipped \u2014 even Advanced Micro Devices’ 9% pop on its growth prospects<\/a> couldn’t rescue the Nasdaq from the red.<\/p>\n It’s not necessarily a warning sign about overexuberance in AI.<\/p>\n “There’s nothing wrong, in our view, of kind of trimming back, taking some gains and re-diversifying across other spots in the equity markets,” said Josh Chastant, portfolio manager of public investments at GuideStone Fund.<\/p>\n But what investors would really like is if fork in the road merges into one. That tends to be the safer path to take.<\/p>\n What you need to know todayAnd finally…<\/p>\n People walk by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on June 18, 2024 in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spencer Platt | Getty Images<\/p>\n