Shares of banks and other financial institutions ticked up as a boom in artificial-intelligence infrastructure financing continued.

Nvidia reached a deal with some of Wall Street's largest firms, including Blackstone, Brookfield and KKR to help raise $500 billion to fund AI infrastructure build-out.

Shares of private-credit managers such as Blue Owl, Blackstone and Ares Management rose despite a Wall Street Journal report about rising defaults in the direct-lending business. One strategist said relief likely came from a strong earnings season for the software sector, where many private-credit funds are concentrated.

"A lot of that scare had to do with the thought some of the software companies were going to have problems; right now, it seems like anything but a problem for the software companies," said J.D. Joyce, president of Houston financial advisory Joyce Wealth Management. "It doesn't seem like software is the bugaboo that everyone thought it was a few months back."