New York, October 6: The Nasdaq closed at a record high on Monday, powered by a tech rally after softer-than-expected US jobs data.

Nvidia climbed 2.1 per cent to close at 237.58 dollars, a record. Its market value reached 5.76 trillion dollars, making it the world's most valuable company by far.

The seven mega-cap tech stocks, Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Tesla, ended the day with a combined market cap of 24.8 trillion dollars, a new record. That is larger than the GDP of every country except the US.

The rally came as weak labour-market data cut expectations of another Federal Reserve rate hike this month from around 70 per cent to 24 per cent.

Asian stocks followed Wall Street higher on Tuesday. The Nikkei gained 0.7 per cent. Brent crude was steady near 100 dollars a barrel.

The third-quarter earnings season kicks off next week. Goldman Sachs expects 27 per cent growth in S&P 500 earnings, with AI infrastructure spending driving more than half of it.