It isn't just Nvidia. A new cadre of hot stocks is riding the wave of excitement generated by the artificial intelligence boom, Matt writes.

Why it matters: The bull market has been running since October 2022, but the near-euphoria surrounding all things AI is adding fresh frisk to already frisky market sentiment. The S&P 500 closed at a record high yesterday.

State of play: A range of stocks linked to the buildout of AI infrastructure surged yesterday, in the aftermath of another remarkable quarterly report from Nvidia.

The intrigue: Nvidia wasn't even the biggest winner yesterday. That prize goes to the niftily named Super Micro Computer, which makes high-end servers to fill the racks in AI-dedicated data centers. It surged over 30% on the day. Also on the move...

• Advanced Micro Devices, considered Nvidia's main rival in AI-oriented graphics processing units (GPUs), added nearly 11%. GPUs have long been used for rendering images in video games, but also serve as the backbone of artificial intelligence applications.
• Synopsys, which makes software that's used for designing chips, surged around 7%.
• Silicon Valley chip maker Marvell Technology jumped 6.6%.

The big picture: Yesterday's surge followed in the wake of another massive quarter for Nvidia, which it reported Wednesday after the close of trading.

• Sales tripled to an absurd $22.10 billion.
• Profits rose almost 800% to $12.29 billion.
• The stock rose over 16% yesterday, adding more than $250 billion in market value in a single day.

What they're saying: In a note on Nvidia's results, Goldman Sachs analysts suggested demand for AI infrastructure shows no signs of slowing.

The bottom line: Stand back, the AI engine is really chugging, pulling the rest of the market behind.

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The big AT&T network outage was a productivity catastrophe for commuters across the country yesterday, but remote workers were totes fine, Bloomberg reported.

State of play: Without cellular access on their train rides, commuters apparently resorted to reading books — the paper kind! — instead of making calls, checking email, frantically Slacking, etc., Emily writes.

• Travel to and from meetings was also disrupted — without Google or Apple Maps guiding the way, people got a bit lost.
• "Missed meetings, frustrated clients, staffers left in the dark — the outage sent American workers into a tailspin."
• Back at home, remote workers with WiFi continued to blissfully distract themselves (I mean, be productive).

The big picture: The outage was less of an issue once folks were at the office, but underlined how commutes generally drain worker productivity — even when phones are working.

The bottom line: The disruption was also a nice reminder of why work-from-home grew popular in the first place.

• Show this to your CEO next time they order folks back to the office.

The S&P 500 is only 7% higher than when I joined Axios—pretty meh.

Why it matters: That pittance masks a tumultuous two years.

Flashback: Since the start of 2022, we've seen...

• The end of the first pandemic in a century.
• Russia starting the biggest land war in Europe since 1945.
• The biggest bout of inflation in four decades.
• $5 gasoline!
• $5 eggs!
• The steepest string of Fed rate hikes in four decades, in response.
• The collapse of the crypto bubble, including the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried's empire and his conviction on fraud charges.
• An ugly bear market in 2022.
• A massive bull market in 2023.
• The biggest banking crisis since 2008.
• The world's second-largest economy stalling out.
• The U.S. housing market stalling out.
• Japan's stock market returning to highs last seen in the 1980s.
• And finally, the emergence of Nvidia as an AI-driven market behemoth.

Between the lines: People who don't spend a lot of time watching or thinking about financial markets often think of them as an agglomeration of numbers: Profits, losses, share prices and percentages.

Reality check: That's only partly true. Sure, numbers are there. But I think of the markets as the domain of storytellers.

• It's not just numbers that are moving Nvidia's share price. Those admittedly impressive results are a way of telling a story about the rise of AI as a real economic force. As you can see from its almost absurd share price growth, people are buying into that story.
• They might be right. But over time it might turn out that they were sold on unrealistic expectations.

The bottom line: That's what makes markets so fascinating to cover. They're deeply human institutions. It's been a pleasure watching them with you.