US stocks finished the session higher, with gains extending beyond the largest technology names. The Russell 2000, a benchmark for US small-cap companies, led the way with a 1.13% advance, while the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted more modest increases. The Nasdaq 100, which tracks the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq and is heavily weighted toward mega-cap technology, lagged with a 0.23% gain, a relative performance that points to a day when buying interest spread into smaller companies and other parts of the market rather than concentrating in the market's biggest names.

The closing levels were as follows:

• Dow industrials: 53,067.32, up 295.05 points or 0.56%.
• S&P 500: 7,666.69, up 35.21 points or 0.46%.
• Nasdaq Composite: 26,217.83, up 118.05 points or 0.45%.
• Russell 2000: 2,953.18, up 33.05 points or 1.13%.
• Nasdaq 100: 29,143.33, up 66.11 points or 0.23%.

Among the bigger winners, several groups stood out.

Technology and AI infrastructure: Dell was the standout, surging 15.27% after beating earnings and raising its forward guidance. Oracle gained 3.29% and Nvidia rose 3.19%, showing continued buying interest in companies tied to computing and AI infrastructure. The divergence between these names and weaker software stocks illustrates how earnings results are increasingly separating winners from losers within the broader technology sector.

Fintech and trading platforms: Block rose 5.96%, SoFi gained 4.90%, PayPal advanced 3.65% and Robinhood added 3.19%. This was one of the clearest clusters of strength among the listed winners.

Consumer spending and travel: Best Buy gained 5.40%, United Airlines rose 3.98% despite oil prices remaining elevated above $90, and Lyft added 3.64%.

Industrials and agriculture: Worthington Industries advanced 5.96%, Deere gained 3.35% and fertilizer producer CF Industries rose 3.11%.

There were also significant pockets of weakness.

Cybersecurity: Palo Alto Networks fell 9.30%, CrowdStrike declined 5.44% and Fortinet lost 4.54%. The First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF dropped 2.73%, showing that the weakness extended across the sector rather than being confined to a single company's results.

High-growth software and AI: Credo Technology plunged 20.02% as earnings failed to impress, Datadog fell 6.56%, Palantir declined 5.80% and Snowflake lost 4.12%. Those declines help explain why the Nasdaq 100 lagged despite strong gains in Dell, Nvidia and Oracle.

Transportation: FedEx fell 2.58%, providing a downside contrast to the strength in United Airlines and Lyft.

The overall market finished higher, but the performance below the surface was mixed. Smaller companies, fintech stocks, selected AI infrastructure names and industrial shares attracted buyers, while cybersecurity and high-valuation software stocks came under pressure. The Russell 2000's outperformance nevertheless suggests that the day's buying reached beyond a handful of large technology companies, a pattern market watchers often read as a sign of broader participation. Whether that breadth holds will depend in part on upcoming earnings reports from companies in the pressured software and cybersecurity groups.