The benchmark S&P 500 rose to a record closing high on Thursday, as investors assessed a mixed bag of corporate earnings and digested comments from President Donald Trump, including a call for cuts in interest rates and oil prices.
Market Snapshot
The S&P 500 gained 32.34 points, or 0.53%, to 6,118.71, The S&P 500 registered its first closing record since Dec. 6 after narrowly missing the milestone on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 408.34 points, or 0.92%, to 44,565.07 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 44.34 points, or 0.22%, to 20,053.68. Palantir Technologies Inc. rose 3%, Tempus AI rose 9%.
Market Movers
Electronic Arts tumbled 17% after the maker of videogames slashed its fiscal-year bookings guidance because of underperformance in its soccer titles. The company estimated net bookings of between $7 billion and $7.15 billion in fiscal 2025, down from previous guidance of between $7.5 billion and $7.8 billion. Electronic Arts said the soccer franchise “experienced a slowdown as early momentum in the fiscal third quarter did not sustain through to the end.” Fellow games maker Take-Two was down 2.2%.
Moderna, Inc. rose 10% as the company is testing a norovirus vaccine in a phase three trial, with results available as soon as this year. Norovirus cases are on the rise this winter, with outbreaks already up more than 30% by December, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
ARM Holdings fell 7.4% after Elon Musk cast doubt on the Stargate initiative. U.S.-listed shares of the U.K. chip designer closed Wednesday with a gain of 16%, the stock’s best daily percentage increase since Feb. 12, 2024, following the rollout of Stargate, a $500 billion artificial-intelligence infrastructure partnership. Arm was named as an initial technology partner for the Stargate project.
NVIDIA on Wednesday also received a boost from the AI initiative, closing 4.4% higher, after it too was a named a Stargate technology partner. The gains Wednesday cemented Nvidia ’s place as the most valuable U.S. company by market capitalization. Shares of Nvidia, the leading maker of AI chips, were up 0.1% Thursday.
A warning from South Korean memory-chip maker SK Hynix, a supplier to Nvidia, of sluggish demand for smartphones and a potential slowdown in AI spending also was hitting shares of chip makers. Micron Technology was down 4%, Broadcom declined 0.3%, and Advanced Micro Devices fell 0.6%.
GE Aerospace reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, said it plans to repurchase $7 billion worth of stock in 2025, and would boost its dividend by 30%, sending shares of the maker of jet engines up 6.6%.
American Airlines declined 8.7% after the carrier posted fourth-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ estimates but issued a forecast for the first quarter that was below expectations. Alaska Air, meanwhile, rose 2.2% after reporting a better-than-expected quarter and saying it expects a narrower first-quarter loss than Wall Street anticipates.
Union Pacific was up 5.2% after the railroad company’s fourth-quarter earnings beat estimates but revenue came in below forecasts. Revenue of $6.12 billion was below estimates of $6.15 billion and down 1% from a year earlier, with the company citing “lower fuel surcharge revenue, unfavorable business mix, and lower other revenue, partially offset by increased volume and core pricing gains.”
AST SpaceMobile, Inc. was down 12% after the space-based cellular broadband network company announced a convertible note offering of $400 million.
Market News
Trump Tells Davos He Will Demand Lower Interest Rates, Oil Prices
U.S. President Donald Trump demanded OPEC lower oil prices and the world drop interest rates in a speech to global business and political leaders and warned them they will face tariffs if they make their products anywhere but the U.S.
"I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately. And likewise, they should be dropping all over the world," Trump said via video to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. "I'm also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil."
The remarks, Trump's first to global leaders in his four-day-old presidency, bolster the message that his second term will eschew free market norms inside the U.S. and out.
Texas Instruments’ Forecast Signals Chip Slump Is Persisting
Texas Instruments Inc. gave a disappointing earnings forecast for the current period, hurt by still-sluggish chip demand and higher manufacturing costs.
Profit will be 94 cents to $1.16 a share in the first quarter, the company said in a statement Thursday. The midpoint of that range, $1.05 a share, was well below the $1.17 that analysts projected on average. Sales will be $3.74 billion to $4.06 billion, compared with an estimate of $3.86 billion.
Much of the electronics industry remains mired in a slump — contributing to nine straight quarters of sales declines at the company. Manufacturing expenses also have affected profit, Texas Instruments executives said.
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