Nasdaq Composite flirts with record close after drought of more than two years

The Nasdaq Composite was briefly on track Friday for its first record close in more than two years, but the tech-heavy stock index remained shy of that as investors pondered the staying power of a rally fueled by optimism around artificial intelligence. The Nasdaq Composite COMP,comprised of most of the stocks that trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange and one of the world’s most closely followed benchmarks, ended down nearly 0.3% Friday at 15,996.82. It had earlier traded as high as 16,134.2