Mumbai, Oct. 7 -- The Nasdaq climbed 161.81 points (0.7%) to 22,941.67 and the S&P 500 rose 24.49 points (0.4%) to 6,740.28, although the narrower Dow bucked the uptrend and edged down 63.31 points (0.1%) to 46,694.97.

The strength in the markets largely reflected a rally by semiconductor stocks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index surging by 2.9% to a record closing high. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) led the sector higher, soaring by 23.7% after the chipmaker announced a 6 gigawatt agreement to power OpenAI's next-generation AI infrastructure across multiple generations of AMD Instinct GPUs.

Gold stocks were considerably strong amid a sharp increase by the price of the precious metal, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index jumping by...