The Fed didn’t drive U.S. stock market rally so far this year, but AI did

The dominating driving force for the rally in U.S. stocks this year is generative artificial intelligence, instead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions and corporate earnings, according to DataTrek Research. 

All three major stock indexes have posted year-to-date gains, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA up 5.4%. The S&P 500 SPX rose 17.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite COMP rallied 34.9% so far this year, according to Dow Jones market data. 

The…