Improved consumer-confidence numbers and an announcement by Anthropic about tools that could potentially be used in combination with existing software—rather than as a replacement—also helped bolster market optimism, said Shannon Saccocia, chief investment officer of wealth at Neuberger Berman. The Nasdaq composite advanced 1%, while the S&P 500 and Dow industrials were both up 0.8%. With so much unknown about how AI will affect business, the first two months of 2026 have been a near daily fight between Wall Street’s bulls and bears, said Jay Hatfield, chief executive officer at Infrastructure Capital Advisors.