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Wall Street Shows It's Still Hungry for07/10 15:24
U.S. stocks ticked higher Friday after Wall Street showed its appetite is
still big for winners of the artificial-intelligence boom.
NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks ticked higher Friday after Wall Street showed
its appetite is still big for winners of the artificial-intelligence boom.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to close out its fourth winning week in the last five.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 149 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq
composite climbed 0.3%.
SK Hynix, a giant South Korean maker of memory chips, shone in the debut of
its stock trading on the Nasdaq. After raising roughly $26.5 billion by selling
American depositary shares at a price of $149 each, it jumped immediately after
trading began in the midday hours and finished with a gain of 13.1%.
SK Hynix's stock in Seoul has already surged 634% over the last year thanks
to euphoria around AI. The boom has created real profits due to surging demand
for computer memory. But it's also raised worries that AI stock prices have
shot have too high and that all the world's spending on chips and data centers
won't be able to produce enough productivity and profit growth to make it worth
it.
That's led to sharp recent swings for AI stocks, which have grown into some
of Wall Street's most influential because of their huge sizes.
Nvidia was the strongest single force lifting the S&P 500 Friday after
rising 4%.
Beyond the uncertainty about AI, the focus on Wall Street is shifting to the
upcoming reporting season for companies' profits during the spring.
Delta Air Lines said it was able to absorb higher fuel prices from April
through June because of strong demand from customers to fly, including a wide
range of corporate travelers. That helped it report profit and revenue for the
spring that topped analysts' expectations, and it gave a forecasted range for
upcoming profit in the summer whose midpoint was above analysts' expectations.
Delta's stock fell 1.8%, though, after coming into the day with a strong
28.2% rise for the year so far.
Companies across industries will need to produce big growth in profits to
justify the big moves for their stock prices, which are broadly near records.
Next week will feature earnings reports from many of the biggest U.S. banks,
including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells
Fargo on Tuesday alone.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Circle Internet Group rose 5%. The company behind
the USDC cryptocurrency, which is supposed to keep the value of $1, said it won
U.S. regulatory approval to establish a bank. It will operate under the name
Circle National Trust, and CEO Jeremy Allaire said the move "marks a defining
step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the
U.S. financial system."
WD-40's stock jumped 10.6% after reporting much stronger profit for the
latest quarter than analysts expected.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 31.75 points to 7,575.39. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average gained 149.60 to 52,367.01, and the Nasdaq composite climbed
74.72 to 26,281.61.
In the oil market, prices continued to pare jumps from earlier in the week
on worries about how the war with Iran will affect the global flow of crude.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard,
dipped 0.4% to $76.01.
That's above its $72 price from the start of the week, but it's still well
below its wartime peak of nearly $120. The worry is that continued fighting
could block oil tankers from the Strait of Hormuz and prevent the delivery of
crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.
President Donald Trump said on his social-media platform that he agreed to
continue talks with Iran but also that the United States told Iran "that the
Cease Fire is OVER!"
In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher. The yield on the 10-year
Treasury rose to 4.56% from 4.54% late Thursday.
High yields have weighed on financial markets worldwide. Yields have climbed
on worries about expensive oil and high inflation, which could push the Federal
Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates.
Higher rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and
hurt prices for all kinds of investments.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed. South Korea's Kospi jumped
2.5%, and Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% for two of the world's bigger moves, but
stocks fell 1% in Shanghai.
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