Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq mixed as AI optimism blots out US shutdown risks

US stocks were mixed on Thursday, eyeing fresh records as OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) buzz buoyed techs and blotted out the prospect of a US government shutdown with no end in sight.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the way higher, rising 0.1%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) declined 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), which includes fewer tech stocks, fell 0.2%.

The S&P 500 scored a fresh all-time high on Wednesday, closing above 6,700 for the first time, as investors focused on a fall in ADP jobs numbers that cemented bets on interest-rate cuts this year.

That upbeat mood held as a wave of good news from the AI sector lifted chip stocks worldwide, with Nvidia (NVDA) rising to a record high. AMD (AMD) and SK Hynix (000660.KS, HXSCL) also gained.

OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) valuation soared to $500 billion after an employee share sale, boosting tech rally hopes despite fears of an AI bubble. The ChatGPT maker ousted Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) as the most valuable startup in the world.

Elsewhere on the tech front, shares in Alibaba (BABA, 9988.HK) stock popped after JPMorgan raised its price target by almost 45%.

Markets are setting aside the US government shutdown, which looks set to drag on at least until the end of the week. The Senate will be out Thursday in observance of Yom Kippur, making Friday the next chance to hold a vote on funding, after it rejected Republican and Democratic bills on Wednesday to trigger the stoppage.

Given that, Friday's scheduled release of the September jobs report is all but certain to be delayed. That has Wall Street looking elsewhere during the federal data blackout as Fed policymakers have indicated cracks in the labor market will loom large in their October rate decision.

Private data from the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released Thursday found hiring plans at their lowest level since 2009, even as layoffs fell. The report provided more evidence of the softening “low hire, low fire” labor market after Wednesday's ADP report. Investors remain near-unanimous on bets for a cut at the Fed's next meeting.

LIVE 18 updates

US hiring plans sink to lowest since 2009 in September as labor market slowdown continues

Yahoo Finance's Emma Ockerman reports:

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Fermi stock bounces around in second day of trading

Fermi (FRMI) stock swung back and forth on Thursday after rising over 54% in its first day of trading on Wednesday.

Shares of the data center REIT rose 9% in premarket trading before dipping 3% lower. At last check, the stock dived

The real estate trust co-founded by former US Energy Secretary Rick Perry aims to build hyperscale data centers and power grids to meet the power demands of artificial intelligence. Its development-stage campus, known as the “President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus,” spans more than 5,000 acres of land in the Texas Panhandle.

“The biggest reason that we went public is we have a global supply chain, and I think it makes it easier for our critical vendors to know who we are if we're a public company,” Fermi America Co-Founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer told Yahoo Finance's Market Domination. “The No. 1 race on the planet right now is for gas generation and the components associated with electron generation, and we want our customers … or our vendors to feel good about us.”
OpenAI valuation spurs stock rally in Nvidia, AI chipmakers

Excitement over OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) $500 billion valuation sparked a rally in AI stocks on Thursday, after the company surpassed Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) as the most valuable startup.

Shares of AI chipmakers Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (AVGO), and AMD (AMD) gained about 1.5%, 2%, and 3%, respectively, in early trading.

Nvidia stock hit an intraday all-time high of $190 on Thursday morning, as optimism around AI chip demand eased investors' concerns about Nvidia's $100 billion investment in OpenAI.

It's been a news-filled week for OpenAI, which released its new video generation AI model, Sora, and announced a partnership with Samsung (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) to increase the supply of advanced memory chips. Current and former OpenAI employees also sold about $6.6 billion of stock to investors, which is what boosted the ChatGPT maker's valuation to an estimated $500 billion.
Tesla reports blowout Q3 deliveries as buyers plow in before federal tax credit expires

Tesla (TSLA) reported third quarter global deliveries that blew past estimates, initially lifting the stock about 3% at the open. However, shares of the electric vehicle maker gave way in early trading, falling by 1% as of 9:45 a.m. ET.

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

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S&P 500, Nasdaq rise at the open as AI optimism boosts tech stocks

US stocks opened higher on Thursday, as the buzz around artificial intelligence lifted tech stocks, even as the US government entered its second day of shutdown. OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) $500 billion valuation helped spur that excitement for AI.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led gains, advancing 0.5% at the open. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2%, building on a record high that saw the major index climb above 6,700 for the first time on Wednesday. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) nudged below the flat line.

Meanwhile, Treasury yields held steady after private payrolls data released Wednesday raised investors bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in October. The 10-year yield (^TNX) rose by 1 basis point to 4.11%.
Bessent on the government shutdown: ‘We could see a hit to the GDP'

As the federal government enters day two of a shutdown, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned the gridlock could slow US economic growth.

“This isn’t the way to have a discussion, shutting down the government and lowering the GDP,” Bessent told CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “We could see a hit to the GDP, a hit to growth, and a hit to working America.”

The US's gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 3.8% in the third quarter, growing for the second straight quarter after growth contracted in the first quarter.

On Wednesday, US senators failed to advance a plan to fund the government after another round of votes. But as Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul notes, the White House also appears poised to use the shutdown as an opportunity to expand Trump's powers to potentially fire government workers or cut programs.

“A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,” Trump said ahead of the stoppage. “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want, and they'd be Democrat things.”
More evidence of the ‘low hire, low fire' labor market

Layoffs fell in September, but companies' hiring plans stood at their lowest level since the Great Recession era, according to data from the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released Thursday.

The report is part of a slew of private data in higher focus, with government data delayed or postponed during the federal government shutdown.

Reuters reports:

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FICO stock soars after the data company begins offering scores directly to lenders

Fair Isaac (FICO), a data analytics company that provides measures of consumer risk, said on Thursday that it would begin selling FICO scores directly to mortgage lenders, circumventing the three major credit bureaus.

FICO stock soared nearly 19% in premarket trading on Thursday, while shares of credit bureaus TransUnion (TRU) and Equifax (EFX) fell 12% each. Experian (EXPN.L) stock, which trades on the London exchange, also dropped 5%.

FICO will sell scores to lenders for a royalty fee of $4.95 per score, undercutting the fees from resellers by 50% on average, the company said. FICO-score mortgage loans that close will also incur a fee of $33.

The move comes as the company faces competition from its lone rival, VantageScore Solutions. In July, government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dealt a blow to FICO by giving lenders a green light to use VantageScore to buy a home.

Since July 8, excluding today's premarket move, FICO shares have declined by around 20%. If today's upswing holds, the stock will have regained nearly all its losses since then.
Buffett's Berkshire to pay nearly $10B for Occidental's OxyChem

Warren Buffett announced his biggest deal in years on Thursday with Berkshire Hathaway's $9.7 billion acquisition of Occidental Petroleum's (OXY) chemical division.

AP reports:

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Amazon’s stock appeal hit by intensifying cloud competition

Despite Amazon's (AMZN) cloud-computing business helping it's shares rise for almost two decades, the eCommerce giant is now facing increasing pressure from rivals Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL), impacting its stock appeal.

Bloomberg News reports:

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Good morning. Here's what's happening today.
OpenAI's valuation soars to $500 billion, topping Musk’s SpaceX

OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) has completed a deal to help employees sell shares in the company at a $500 billion valuation, propelling the ChatGPT owner past Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) to become the world’s largest startup.

Bloomberg reports:

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Premarket trending tickers: Equifax, Alibaba, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix

Here's a look at some of the top stocks trending in premarket trading:

Equifax Inc. (EFX) stock slid 10% in premarket trading on Thursday after Fair Issac announced it would license its credit scores directly to mortgage resellers, raising concerns among major credit unions.

Alibaba (BABA) stock rose 2% before the bell on Thursday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) raised its price target for the eCommerce giant.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (005930.KS) gained 3% and SK hynix Inc. (000660.KS) shares rose 9% on Thursday following a deal with OpenAI to support the ChatGPT maker's expansive Stargate artificial intelligence data centre project.
Why Goldman is still bullish on gold

No beating around the bush from Goldman Sachs this morning — it still loves gold as an investment.

“Still our favorite long commodity,” Daan Struyven and other analysts said in a note. Gold (GC=F) prices are up 46% year to date.

Here's why Struyven still sees gold shining:
Interesting AM analyst calls

It's almost earnings season!

And that means the start of interesting pre-earnings notes from the Street.

A few that caught my attention pre-5am:

Chipotle: Bernstein analyst Danilo Gargiulo leaves an Outperform rating on Chipotle (CMG). But he all but hints the stock could get hit again on third quarter earnings. “With persisting macro pressures and a weakening labor market, we expect Chipotle’s same-store sales to miss 3Q25 expectations. Rather than by ‘Mexican food fatigue’, ‘excessive pricing’ or ‘rising competition’, we continue to believe that the relative demand weakness is driven by consumer confidence declining, greater exposure to more impacted demographics, and partially by the increased promotional environment that is compressing consumers’ willingness to pay $10+ for their lunch. We are also conscious that rising beef prices may impact restaurant level margins given Chipotle’s commitment not to take price near term,” says Gargiulo. My recent Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast with Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright for my insight into the company at this juncture.

PepsiCo: No rest for the weary at PepsiCo (PEP) as it contends with new activist investor Elliott Management and a largely bearish Wall Street. RBC Capital Markets analyst Nik Modi is keeping a Sector-Perform rating PepsiCo, but similar to Gargiulo on Chipotle sound quite bearish on PepsiCo into earnings. “We are expecting another difficult quarter for PepsiCo headlined by continued sluggish top line results in North America as snacking volumes continue to be a challenge, with muted PBNA [North America beverages] trends and pockets of international softness (Coca-Cola (KO) was talking down international beverage volumes in early September),” Modi said.

Alibaba: Alibaba (BABA) is seeing interest today on the Yahoo Finance platform amid estimate raises from JP Morgan analyst Alex Yao. The stock is up 36% in the past month, and 117% on the year. Explains Yao: “Alibaba’s share price has outperformed the sector average, as measured by KWEB, by 364 percentage points in the past three months, due to better-than-expected cloud revenue growth rate in 2Q25 and management’s confident articulation of its investment strategy in food delivery and quick commerce, in our view. After attending Alibaba's Apsara conference last week in Hangzhou, we are incrementally more positive on AliCloud for its future revenue generation opportunity with external clients (i.e. cloud revenue) and synergy with domestic ecommerce. We believe the positive development in both cloud and China domestic ecommerce warrants a higher valuation multiple as the narrative of Alibaba shifts towards ‘a tier-one asset in China Internet’ from ‘a domestic ecommerce market share loser.”
Rick Perry's REIT Fermi jumps after $683M IPO

Fermi's (FRMI) shares rose 14% before the bell on Thursday after closing 54% up in their Nasdaq debut on Wednesday. The energy real estate investment trust (REIT), founded by former US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, raised $682.5 million in its US listing.

Reuters reports:

Read more here.
Global chipmakers add $200 billion in value as AI buzz fuels record rally

Asia chip stocks soared on Thursday as investors rushed to get exposure to AI, the latest sign of a frenetic bull run that is pushing tech stocks to all-time highs.

Bloomberg reports:

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OpenAI closes share sale at record-breaking $500 billion valuation

Bloomberg reports:

Read more here.