Japan's Nikkei stock index jumps 4.3% after ruling party chooses an ultra-conservative as its leader
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street keeps setting more records, and excitement about the artificial-intelligence industry keeps leading the way.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.4% to set an all-time high following mixed trading on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 63 points, or 0.1%, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.7% to its own record.
Advanced Micro Devices helped lead the way and soared 23.7% after announcing a deal where OpenAI will use its chips to power AI infrastructure. As part of the deal, OpenAI could own up to 160 million shares of AMD if it hits certain milestones.
A frenzy around AI has been one of the main reasons Wall Street has been hitting record after record, though that’s also raising worries that prices have potentially shot too high. Much of the furor around AI in the last couple weeks has come from OpenAI, which has quickly grown into a $500 billion company. It’s been announcing deals with businesses around the world to develop more AI infrastructure.
Another chip company, Nvidia, announced a deal last month where it would invest $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a partnership, creating criticism that the AI investment pipeline was beginning to appear like a circle. Nvidia slipped 1.1% following the AMD announcement. Because it’s the most valuable stock on Wall Street, Nvidia was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.
Outside of tech, Comerica jumped 13.7% after Fifth Third Bancorp agreed to buy it in an all-stock deal valued at $10.9 billion. The combination would create the country’s ninth-largest bank. Fifth Third’s stock fell 1.4%.
Tesla rose 5.4% after social-media postings by the electric-vehicle maker hinted at a possible product unveiling coming on Tuesday.
Verizon Communications fell 5.1% after the telecom replaced its chief executive. Dan Schulman, a director at the company and former CEO of PayPal, is taking over for Hans Vestburg.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, trading was relatively quiet as the stock market continues to largely ignore the U.S. government’s shutdown. Past closures of the federal government have had minimal effect on the stock market or on the economy, and the bet on Wall Street is that something similar will happen again.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 24.49 points to 6,740.28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 63.31 to 46,694.97, and the Nasdaq composite rose 161.16 to 22,941.67.
Politics are playing a bigger role in stock markets abroad, as Japanese stocks soared and French stocks slumped following their latest political shake-ups.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 4.8% after the country’s Liberal Democratic Party chose Sanae Takaichi as its leader. She was an ally of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who pushed for lower interest rates and other policies that investors liked.
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