Wall Street's indexes rose on Wednesday, with the benchmark S&P 500 hitting an intraday record high as investors cheered streaming video provider Netflix's quarterly report and President Donald Trump's private-sector artificial intelligence infrastructure investment plan.

Wall Street closed higher, with the S&P 500 index scoring an all-time high. Blowout Netflix results and plans for $500b AI investment fuel gains.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.8% to close at 39958.87 amid risk-on sentiment. "Equities worldwide continued to ride on the wave of U.S.' AI investment announcement, as well as blowout earnings from streaming giant Netflix,

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures rose on Wednesday, with those tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq in the lead as investors cheered streaming giant Netflix's strong quarterly performance and President Donald Trump's multi-billion show of support for the AI technology industry.

Global stocks eased on Thursday, halting a rally sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's mammoth spending plans for artificial intelligence infrastructure as some of that excitement fizzled out, though Chinese shares fared better on Beijing's support.

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Netflix shot up 14.6% after it reported adding nearly 19 million subscribers during the holiday-season quarter and it topped sales and profit targets. The video streaming service’s expansion into live programming appears to be paying off as it wrapped up its best year ever with more than $40 billion in revenue.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 37.13 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 130.92 and the Nasdaq composite jumped 252.56.

President Donald Trump's boost to AI demand hopes is outweighing fresh tariff threats on China and the EU, as earnings season rolls on.

Will Ferrell appeared on Jason and Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast and finally explained his decision to revive Buddy the Elf as a disheveled beer drinker and smoker. The comedian went viral across social media for dressing as his iconic “Elf” character while attending the Dec. 29 hockey game between the Los Angeles Kings and …

Netflix, Oracle and other technology stocks are lifting U.S. indexes Wednesday as their profits pile higher and excitement builds around the moneymaking prospects of artificial intelligence.