Wall Street rises, ASX set to bounce
Volatility peaked on Thursday as U.S. stocks rose early after Nvidia quelled concerns about a potential bubble in artificial intelligence technology. But the market quickly lost sharply, mounting its biggest one-day reversal since April, when President Donald Trump shocked markets with “Emancipation Day” tariffs.
Despite a strong profit report from Nvidia, whose chips are powering the move into artificial intelligence, long-term concerns still linger. Will all those AI chips that Amazon, Meta Platforms, and other companies are gobbling up really produce as much profit and productivity as advocates predict? Otherwise, some investors fear that the entire investment may not be worth it.
AI-related stocks continued to surge on Friday, helping drag the rest of the market behind them. Nvidia went from an initial gain to a 4.3 percent decline and then lurched back and forth, managing to finish with a 1 percent loss, for example. Amazon moved from an early loss to a gain of 1.6 percent.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin briefly dropped below $81,000 and then pulled back to $85,000. That’s down from last month’s high of about $125,000, bringing it back to where it was in April when markets were rocked by Trump’s tariffs.
The vast majority of stocks on Wall Street rose despite such volatility; Nearly 90 percent of stocks in the S&P 500 climbed. Their moves are often suppressed by Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks; The movements of these stocks have a much greater impact on the S&P 500 due to their enormous size.
“When the largest companies bear most of the losses, the market can appear weaker than it actually is,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
Many retailers have led the way. Gap rose 8.2 percent after reporting a stronger profit than analysts expected in the last quarter. CEO Richard Dickson said he is seeing strong sales trends at each of the Old Navy, Gap and Banana Republic brands.
Loading
Ross Stores also gained 8.4 percent after posting a better-than-expected profit. CEO Jim Conroy said he saw broad-based growth during the quarter and raised the company’s forecast for a key measure of holiday season sales.
Homebuilders were also strong on hopes that lower interest rates could make mortgages cheaper and give momentum to the housing market. DR Horton was up 6.8 percent, Lennar was up 5.9 percent and PulteGroup was up 5.2 percent.
Overall, the S&P 500 rose 64.23 points to 6,602.99. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 493.15 to 46,245.41, and the Nasdaq composite index increased by 195.03 to 22,273.08 points.
In the bond market, Treasury bond yields decreased with the expectation that the Fed would increase interest rates. According to data from CME Group, traders believe the probability of a rate cut in December will rise sharply to almost 72 percent, from 39 percent the previous day. That helped the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rise to 4.06 percent from 4.10 percent late Thursday.
In foreign stock markets, indices in Europe were mixed after the decline in Asia following Wall Street’s striking comeback on Thursday.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 2.4 percent, and South Korea’s Kospi index fell 3.8 percent with two big losses.
access point
