Highlights
Stock indexes were mostly lower Thursday though most stocks advanced as AI stocks led the decliners to weigh on the Nasdaq. The Dow Jones industrial average firmed 0.1 percent while the S&P 500 lost 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 1.3 percent. Bond yields and the dollar declined while oil prices rose but came off the day’s highs.
The AI trade was hit by a Financial Times report that OpenAI told investors its revenues were far below a widely expected figure, and by disappointment over earnings from TSMC and Samsung. Big technology had a bad day to correct gains this week, paced by losses in Spacex and Nvidia.
Lower bond yields bolstered the market with oil prices down after President Trump’s statement that he would not attack Iran ahead of the midterm elections, contrary to a report on Wednesday that said the president was weighing options to attack sooner. Observers generally believe Trump wants to keep energy prices down as much as possible ahead of the elections and that would preclude new strikes.