Stan Choe
Stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry are leading Wall Street mostly higher as their yo-yo moves swing back upward.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent and pulled within 1.3 per cent of its all-time high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 39 points, or 0.1 per cent, in early afternoon trade, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2 per cent higher.
The Australian sharemarket is set to edge higher, with futures pointing to a rise of 11 points, or 0.1 per cent, at the open. The ASX added 0.5 per cent on Tuesday. The Australian dollar was stronger at US70.28¢ at 5.10am AEDT.
The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 were falling, but the gains for influential AI stocks made up for that. AI stocks are on track for a second winning day after swerving for weeks on worries about whether their boom is under threat because of how expensive it’s become for companies to borrow money to build data centres and buy more AI chips.
Broadcom climbed 4 per cent after announcing a $US63 billion ($89.7 billion) financing deal where several Wall Street firms will help Anthropic get access to Broadcom’s XPU AI accelerators and networking solutions.
Elsewhere in the industry, Nvidia rose 1 per cent and was the only force stronger than Broadcom pushing the S&P 500 higher. CoreWeave, a company that’s borrowed money to buy AI chips that it rents out to customers over the cloud, jumped 7.3 per cent, though it’s been careening between big gains and losses within each of the past few days.
General Motors climbed 5.5 per cent after saying it’s moving its stock from a listing on the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq. The automaker said the Nasdaq, which is home to several of the world’s biggest technology stocks, is a fit for its tech-driven strategy. The move could also allow GM to join the Nasdaq 100 index, which would force investment funds that mimic the index to buy it.
GM began trading on the NYSE in 1911.
JetBlue Airways flew 18.8 per cent higher even though it reported a larger loss for the summer than analysts expected. CEO Joanna Geraghty said the company expects to return to making sustained operating profits next year and to deliver at least $US1 in earnings per share in 2028.
Investors may have been bracing for something worse after the airline’s stock came into the day with a loss of nearly 48 per cent for the year so far.
Another travel company, Royal Caribbean Group, also helped lead the market and rose 8.4 per cent. The cruise operator delivered a stronger profit for the summer than analysts expected, while raising its forecast for profit over the full year.
Companies overall are under pressure to deliver big growth in profits. Expectations are high among financial analysts and investors, and that’s what allowed their stock prices to run to records recently despite high inflation, high interest rates and other concerns weighing on the market.
Boeing fell 9.4 per cent after reporting a larger loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Hilton Worldwide Holdings sank 3.4 per cent after reporting weaker revenue for the summer than analysts expected. It also gave a range as a forecast for profit in the final three months of the year whose midpoint fell below analysts’ expectations. The hotel company said it expects to see “increased impact from the Middle East” during the quarter.
Sherwin-Williams fell 2.6 per cent after delivering a weaker profit than analysts expected. High mortgage rates have helped chill the housing industry, which in turn pressures demand for the paints and coatings Sherwin-Williams sells.
“Customer sentiment and the leading indicators we track point to muted demand over the remainder of the year and into 2027,” CEO Heidi Petz said. At the same time, her company is dealing with inflation pushing up its costs for raw materials.
Confidence among US shoppers has tumbled recently as pressure keeps building on them from high inflation. But a report on Tuesday said that US consumer confidence improved in October, when economists expected further weakening.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady a day before the Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce its latest decision on interest rates. The Fed last month hiked the fed funds rate for the first time in three years in hopes of slowing inflation, but the widespread expectation on Wall Street is that it will hold rates steady this time.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 5.00 per cent, where it was late Monday.
Helping to keep yields in check was a drop for oil prices. The price for a barrel of Brent crude fell 1.1 per cent to $US109.51.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Stocks jumped 3.1 per cent in Seoul and fell 1.3 per cent in Shanghai for two of the bigger moves.
AP
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