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BNY is deploying AI and agentic AI to enhance employee and consumer experiences for onboarding, billing, payments, coding and more. By the end of the third quarter, BNY had 117 AI solutions in production, Chief Executive Robin Vince said today during the bank’s Q3 earnings call. “That is an increase of 75% compared to the […]
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Whitney McDonald
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Last month’s collapses of Tricolor and First Brands, a subprime auto lender and auto-parts supplier, respectively, sent alarm bells ringing across Wall Street about the health of the consumer credit market. Those concerns deepened today (Oct. 14) as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned during the bank’s quarterly earnings call that “everyone should be forewarned” by the recent bankruptcies.
“My antenna goes up when things like that happen,” Dimon told analysts. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but when you see one cockroach, there are probably more.”
Tricolor filed for bankruptcy in September amid allegations of fraud. The Dallas-based company specialized in providing auto loans to so-called “subprime” lenders with low credit scores. First Brands, a car parts manufacturer headquartered in Rochester, Mich., went bankrupt shortly afterward, with more than $2 billion in funds unaccounted for. Both companies had received financing from various Wall Street banks, sparking fears that financial institutions could increasingly be put at risk due to their exposure to non-bank lenders.
JPMorgan said it had no exposure to First Brands. But it was impacted by Tricolor’s collapse, taking a $170 million charge-off—a loss recognized when a loan won’t be repaid—stemming from the company’s bankruptcy. The hit took place during an otherwise strong quarter for JPMorgan, which beat analyst expectations on both revenue and profit for July through September. Revenue rose 9 percent year-over-year to $47 billion, while net income climbed 12 percent to $14.4 billion.
Dimon said the bank is now reviewing “all processes, all procedures, all underwriting—all everything” in light of the Tricolor collapse. “There clearly was, in my opinion, fraud involved in a bunch of these things. But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve our procedures,” he added.
Dimon, who has led JPMorgan for nearly two decades, also warned that weaknesses in the credit market could worsen if the economy deteriorates. “We’ve had a benign credit environment for so long that I think you may see credit in other places deteriorate a little bit more than people think when, in fact, there’s a downturn,” he said, adding that he is hoping for a “fairly normal credit cycle.”
Even so, the bulk of JPMorgan’s lending to non-bank financial institutions (NBFI) is not particularly risky, said Jeremy Barnum, the bank’s chief financial officer. “The vast majority of that type of lending that we do is highly secured or in some way structured or securitized,” he told analysts today. “I’m not sure that our lending to the NBFI community is an area of risk that we see as more elevated than other areas of risk.”
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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JPMorgan Chase continues to invest in AI while prioritizing tangible outcomes of efficiency gains. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the bank invests $2 billion annually in AI development and is roughly breaking even on savings in a recent interview with Bloomberg. Read more: JPMorgan ranks first for AI among banks with its systematic innovation approach […]
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Whitney McDonald
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Wells Fargo expects its 2025 gross expense savings to reach $2.4 billion by the end of the year, bringing its total savings from 2021 to 2025 to $15 billion. These savings allowed the $2 trillion bank to largely increase its spend, effectively creating a better and stronger bank over time, Chief Executive Charlie Scharf said […]
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Whitney McDonald
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Between the U.S. government shutdown and ongoing economic uncertainty, it’s a turbulent time for airlines. But not for Delta, the largest American airline by market capitalization, which has emerged from the industry’s recent challenges largely unscathed as its investment in high-end travel begins to pay off.
Delta shares jumped more than 4 percent today (Oct. 9) after the Atlanta-headquartered airline reported better-than-expected revenue and profit for the July-September quarter. Quarterly sales reached $15.2 billion, up 4.1 percent year-over-year, while net income rose 11 percent to $1.42 billion. Strong demand for premium travel helped lift results: sales in Delta’s premium unit climbed 9 percent to $5.8 billion, even as main cabin revenue dipped 4 percent to $6 billion.
The airline could soon earn more from premium seating than from economy for the first time. Delta had previously forecast that milestone for 2027, but it may now happen as early as next year, according to the airline’s president, Glen Hauenstein. “We see that there are many, many more opportunities in premium in the coming years,” he told analysts today.
Some of those opportunities lie in Delta’s key markets like Los Angeles, Boston, New York and Seattle due to their concentration of a “considerable amount of premium” customers, CEO Ed Bastian said on today’s call.
The airline is also expanding its high-end offerings by outfitting nearly 1,000 aircraft with free WiFi and deepening partnerships with American Express, Uber and YouTube. Delta has even ventured into retail through collaborations like its recent lounge set project with Spanx.
Back in March, things looked less promising when Delta slashed its profit forecast amid economic concerns tied to the Trump administration’s tariffs. The company refers to that period as the “spring swoon.” Since then, Delta has rebounded and offered stronger-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter of 2025, projecting total revenue growth between 2 and 4 percent over the next three months.
Meanwhile, the U.S. travel industry faces headwinds from the federal government shutdown that began in early October. Flights across the country have been delayed as Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facilities report staffing shortages. The country has also seen a “slight tick-up in sick calls” from air traffic controllers—who, like other essential workers, are expected to work without pay during the shutdown, said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at a recent press conference.
Delta has weathered shutdowns before. During the 35-day federal shutdown that began in 2018, the airline lost about $1 million per day in revenue, Hauenstein said. This time, the impact has been smaller, in part because Delta is less dependent on the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport—one of the hubs most affected by staffing disruptions.
“While we are monitoring potential impacts from the U.S. government shutdown, we have not seen a material effect to date,” added Hauenstein.
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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Since 1970, U.S. public companies have been mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to provide financial updates every three months via quarterly earnings reports. This 55-year-old tradition could soon be cut in half under the Trump administration, which is seeking to move to semi-annual reports. The proposal has drawn both praise and criticism from some of Wall Street’s most influential leaders.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, voiced his support for President Donald Trump’s suggestion during an interview with Bloomberg TV yesterday (Oct. 7). “I would welcome it,” he said, noting that quarterly forecasts make “CEOs get their back up against a wall.” “They have to meet these things—earnings—and then they start doing dumb stuff,” he added.
Trump floated the proposal last month, arguing that reporting earnings every six months instead of three would “save money and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies.” The President previously pushed for a similar change in 2018 during his first term, when the SEC solicited public feedback but ultimately left the quarterly requirement in place.
This time, however, the SEC appears more willing to act. The agency has indicated that the proposal will be a priority, with Paul Atkins, the SEC’s chair, calling the President’s request “timely” and something the SEC is “working to fast-track.” A draft proposal could be released in the next few months, according to Atkins.
Dimon said JPMorgan would still report earnings quarterly, but with “much less stuff.” He described the requirement as part of a larger problem of “endless rules” that make it harder for companies to go public. “We’ve gone from 8,000 public companies in 1996 to, like, 4,000 today,” he told Bloomberg. “You want an active market, and we’ve kind of crushed it.”
Dimon isn’t alone in supporting the potential shift. Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, praised Trump’s proposal after it was announced, arguing that quarterly reporting encourages “short-termism“—an excessive focus on immediate results. In a LinkedIn post, she called for “common-sense reforms to reduce the burden on publicly listed companies.”
The benefits of semi-annual reporting are evident, according to David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs. Fewer earnings reports free up time for companies and allow executives to take a long-term view, he remarked during a talk last month at Georgetown University. “As a CEO, I’d obviously rather do two earnings calls a year than four earnings calls a year,” he said.
Still, Solomon admitted that eliminating quarterly reports could reduce transparency. “I’m still thinking it through, and the firm’s still thinking it through,” he added, noting that he has yet to decide whether he supports the change.
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, however, has made up his mind. “I don’t understand the merits of holding back from the market, readily knowable information,” he told CNBC in September, warning that accountability could suffer if longer gaps between reports are allowed. “In this day and age, quarterly reporting is fair,” added Griffin. Griffin agreed with Dimon’s view that overregulation discourages initial public offerings, saying barriers to expanding the number of publicly owned companies should be addressed.
This isn’t the first time financial leaders have questioned the quarterly reporting model. In 2018, Dimon and Warren Buffett co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed urging companies to reduce or eliminate quarterly earnings forecasts. They argued that such forecasts push companies toward short-term thinking and discourage those with longer-term goals from going public. “Our views on quarterly earnings forecasts should not be misconstrued as opposition to quarterly and annual reporting,” wrote Dimon and Buffett, who maintained that transparency remains “an essential aspect of U.S. public markets.”
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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Arecor Therapeutics (LON:AREC – Get Free Report) released its earnings results on Thursday. The company reported GBX (7) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, Digital Look Earnings reports. Arecor Therapeutics had a negative net margin of 176.89% and a negative return on equity of 118.67%.
AREC traded up GBX 14.30 during trading on Thursday, hitting GBX 86.80. 132,247 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 35,933. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 6.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.51. Arecor Therapeutics has a 1 year low of GBX 35.40 and a 1 year high of GBX 100. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of GBX 63.89 and a 200 day moving average price of GBX 50.04. The firm has a market cap of £32.77 million, a P/E ratio of -280.00 and a beta of -0.18.
Arecor Therapeutics plc is a globally focused biopharmaceutical company transforming patient care by bringing innovative medicines to market through the enhancement of existing therapeutic products. By applying our innovative proprietary technology platform, Arestat™, we are developing an internal portfolio of proprietary products in diabetes and other indications, as well as working with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to deliver therapeutic products.
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ABMN Staff
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Tariffs and years of teetering mall traffic have roiled much of the toy industry. But Build-A-Bear investors are continuing to reap sizeable gains.
Shares of Build-A-Bear Workshop are up more than 60% since the start of 2025, trading at just under $72 apiece as of Tuesday afternoon. That compares to just 13% for the S&P 500 since the start of the year, and marks dramatic growth from five years ago, when the St. Louis-based retailer’s stock sat under $3.
The toy industry overall has been “reasonably soft” in recent years, notes Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData — but certain categories, including craft-oriented products, have done very well following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. And that’s key to Build-A-Bear’s core business model: welcoming consumers into their brick-and-mortar stores to make their own plush animals.
That may also set Build-A-Bear apart from the malls its stores are often inside, many of which have struggled to see overall traffic rebound over the years.
“The mall may not be a destination, but Build-A-Bear often is — because it’s often a planned trip,” Saunders said. “It’s a store within a mall that many consumers make a beeline for.”
Build-A-Bear is still not isn’t entirely immune to macroeconomic pressures, but the company’s profit has soared to record after record in recent quarters. Last month, the retailer reported what it said were the best results for a second quarter and first half of a fiscal year in the history of the Build-A-Bear, which opened its first store in 1997. Company executives pointed to strong store performance and other expansion efforts.
In the first half of its 2025 fiscal year, the company’s revenues hit $252.6 million and its pre-tax income climbed to $34.9 million — up 11.5% and 31.5%, respectively, year-over-year.
The company also raised its financial outlook for the full year, despite anticipated costs of President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs on goods coming into the U.S. from around the world and other headwinds.
“Tariffs are a real cost that we are facing,” Voin Todorovic, chief financial officer at Build-A-Bear, said in the company’s Aug. 28 earnings call — pointing to current U.S. import tax rates of 30% on China and 20% on Vietnam, where the retailer sources much of its products. Some of that has already trickled down to the cost of Build-A-Bear’s merchandise in North America, but Todorovic noted that such levies would impact the company “even more in the second half of the year.”
Still, he and other executives pointed to preparations Build-A-Bear had made to lessen the blow, including previous inventory increases. The company also maintained that consumer-facing price impacts would be limited.
While the retailer offers some ready-made toys and toy clothing, “what Build-A-Bear generally buys is materials,” Saunders noted. This can “hedge against tariffs much more effectively,” he explained, as they reduce labor costs and potentially allow for more flexibility on sourcing.
Still, Saunders notes that everyone is going to be affected by tariffs and Build-A-Bear isn’t an exception. He adds that consumers will probably “eat that extra cost because they’re paying for the entertainment value.”
Barring any significant changes, Todorovic said in August’s earnings call that tariffs are anticipated to cost Build-A-Bear under $11 million for the 2025 fiscal year. But despite that and other costs, he noted that the company is still on track to approach or slightly beat last year’s earnings.
The company’s latest guidance expects its pre-tax income to reach between $62 million to $70 million for the full 2025 fiscal year, compared to just over $67 million reported in 2024.
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President Donald Trump wants corporations to “no longer be forced” to report earnings every quarter.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, he said companies should instead only be required to post earnings every six months, pending the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval. This change would break a quarterly reporting mandate that’s been in place since 1970.
“This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies,” Trump wrote.
Trump added that China has a “50 to 100 year view on management of a company,” as opposed to U.S. companies required to report four times in a fiscal year. China’s Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) allows companies to submit voluntary quarterly financial disclosures, but only requires them to report their financial results twice a year.
During his first term, Trump publicly asked the SEC on X, then still known as Twitter, to study shifting company disclosures from a quarterly to semiannual basis, stating business leaders felt less frequent reporting would allow for greater flexibility and long-term planning.
He told reporters at the time that he got the idea from CEOs.
“It made sense to me because, you know, we are not thinking far enough out,” Trump said in 2018. “We’ve been accused of that for a long time, this country. So we’re looking at that very, very seriously.”
No change came from the SEC.
A revived debate
“President Trump has revived an old idea emphasizing the costs of quarterly filings, the distraction from long-term goals, and how they reinforce Wall Street’s obsession with beating short-term expectations,” Usha Haley, a professor at the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University, told Fortune.
For his part, SEC Chair Paul Atkins has explicitly called for more transparency as he’s taken control of the regulatory body this year.
But companies keep pushing back. Last week, the San Francisco-based Long Term Stock Exchange said it planned to petition the SEC to end its quarterly reporting requirement. The exchange lists companies focused on long-term goals.
Critics of the move argue that it might reduce transparency for investors.
Chad Cummings, a CPA and attorney at Cummings & Cummings Law, told Fortune semiannual reporting enables companies to hide “red flags” like deteriorating cash flows or abrupt changes in auditor language, which can lead to unsavory practices like concealment of liquidity crises, accounting fraud, and whistleblower retaliation.
“Removal of quarterly earnings sabotages valuation models and tilts power to insiders,” Cummings, who has active bar admissions in the U.S. Tax and Bankruptcy courts, added.
SEC approval would face internal resistance, statutory barriers, and potential litigation, as the SEC’s investor protection mandate requires “reasonably current” disclosure, Cummings said.
If regulators stopped requiring companies to report earnings every quarter without having clear legal authority, the decision could be challenged in court under the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that governs how U.S. administrative agencies create regulations, he warned.
Meanwhile, Haley also said Trump’s nod to China’s financial disclosure mandates misses the point.
“The United States is not China,” she said. “Our markets derive their strength and global dominance through transparency, investor protections, and a long tradition of disclosures… Weakening those guardrails, while invoking efficiency risks, undermines investors’ confidence, the foundation of U.S. capital markets, which China does not have.”
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Nino Paoli
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Shares of design software company Figma plunged 14% in extended trading, as investors took a dim view of Figma’s first quarter earnings report.
Figma CEO Dylan Field, who cofounded the company in 2012 and watched its $20 billion acquisition by Adobe fall apart in 2023, isn’t one to get caught up in the negative. “We’re at the very start of what I hope is a long term relationship together,” a confident Field told listeners as he kicked off the earnings call, taking advantage of the opportunity to demonstrate Figma’s presentation technology.
Prior to the call, Field spoke to Fortune and shared his thoughts on one of the most important trends affecting his business: AI.
“No one knows whether we’re going to look back in five years at everything that’s happening right now in AI and say, ‘Oh my God, those were the bubbliest of times,” Field said. “Or: ‘Wow, we totally underestimated the effect it would have on society.’ But for Figma, what I think will be true in five years is that we’re always trying to make it so you can go as fast as possible from idea to production. And I think with AI, you can really accelerate that.”
AI is at the center of the private and public markets, and is widely viewed as a key tailwind—and risk factor—for Figma. In its fiscal second quarter, Figma grew revenue a healthy 41% year-over-year to $249.6 million, roughly in-line with analyst expectations. Figma reported $28.2 million in net income, or break-even on a per share basis.
Field believes one of the key intersections between AI and design is that AI tools will help broaden access, letting more people become designers. Figma added four new AI-native tools to its platform this quarter and told investors on the call to expect significant investments in AI going forward.
“We want to lower the floor, but raise the ceiling—make it so more people can participate in the design process, while also enabling professionals to do even more with AI,” Field told Fortune, reiterating a company mantra of “design is the differentiator.”
The “design as differentiator” thesis dates back to Figma’s early days. When Field was an intern at Flipboard in 2012, he noticed that, even then, companies were hiring more designers.
And as mobile technology and consumer expectations evolved, he theorized design was becoming a critical differentiator, transitioning from a skill to a critical business advantage. That’s only more true today, he said, adding that “there’s a kind of talent war happening for design right now that’s being talked about in conversation a lot online.”
Ultimately, Field said, Figma’s approach to AI is about riding the wave.
“Our philosophy is that as the models get better, we get better,” he said. “That’s always the test I have strategically for us.”
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Allie Garfinkle
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The bank says it earned a net income of $2.33 billion or $3.14 per diluted share for the quarter which ended July 31. The result for the quarter compared with a profit of $1.87 billion or $2.48 per diluted share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $8.99 billion in the quarter, up from $8.19 billion a year earlier.
BMO’s provision for credit losses amounted to $797 million for the quarter, compared with $906 million a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BMO says it earned $3.23 per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of $2.64 a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for earnings of $2.95 per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
“BMO delivered another quarter of strong earnings growth, with solid revenue performance and good expense management,” BMO chief executive Darryl White said in a statement.
“We continue to invest to drive sustainable growth across our businesses, including our recently announced acquisition of Burgundy Asset Management Ltd., adding talent and advancing digital and AI capabilities to deliver a differentiated client experience.”
The bank said its Canadian personal and commercial banking business earned $867 million in its latest quarter, down from $914 million a year ago, as higher revenue was more than offset by higher expenses and a higher provision for credit losses for the quarter.
In the U.S., BMO said its personal and commercial banking business earned $709 million, up from $470 million in the same quarter last year.
The bank said its wealth management business earned $436 million, up from $362 million a year ago, while BMO’s capital markets business earned $438 million, up from $389 million in the same quarter last year.
BMO’s corporate services group reported a net loss of $120 million, compared with reported net loss of $270 million a year earlier.
Numbers for its third quarter of 2025 (all figures in USD).
The Bank of Nova Scotia reported a third-quarter profit of $2.53 billion, up from $1.91 billion a year ago.
The bank says the profit amounted to $1.84 per diluted share for the quarter ended July 31, up from $1.41 per diluted share in the same period a year ago.
Revenue totalled $9.49 billion for the quarter, up from $8.36 billion in the same quarter last year.
Scotiabank’s provision for credit losses for the quarter amounted to $1.04 billion, down from $1.05 billion a year earlier.
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The Canadian Press
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Chip-design giant Nvidia is seeing high demand for its graphics processing units amid rising adoption of agentic AI. The demand is adding to Nvidia’s data center revenue, which increased 56% year over year to $46 billion, according to Nvidia’s fiscal second-quarter 2026 earnings results, announced Aug. 27. Financial institutions are prioritizing deployment of agentic AI […]
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Vaidik Trivedi
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Nvidia delivered another estimate-beating quarter, but regulatory setbacks and U.S.-China tensions are casting doubt over its core data center business even as Wall Street continues to demand more from the world’s most valuable public company.
Revenue for the May–July quarter jumped 56 percent year-over-year to $46.7 billion, while net income climbed 59 percent to $26.4 billion, reported Nvidia yesterday (Aug. 27). Both figures beat analyst expectations. However, shares fell more than 3 percent after the earnings release as Nvidia’s core data center sales slightly missed estimates.
The chipmaker’s data center revenue, its most important line of business, came in at $41.1 billion for the quarter compared to expectations of $41.3 billion. It was hampered in part by geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. Sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips, which are designed specifically for the Chinese market in compliance with America’s export restrictions, in April were blocked under the Trump administration.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has since convinced the President to lift the ban on H20 exports to China, agreeing to cut the government 15 percent of the company’s revenue from such sales. However, Washington “has not published a regulation codifying such requirement,” said Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer, on yesterday’s earnings call.
If restrictions do ease, Nvidia expects $2 billion to $5 billion in H20 revenue in the current quarter, Kress said. That will likely come from Nvidia’s existing inventory of H20. The company has reportedly halted H20 production after the Chinese government banned it, citing security risks. Nvidia is said to be developing another China-specific chip.
Huang has spent much of the past year shuttling between Washington and Beijing in an effort to soothe over tensions. While speaking to analysts, he stressed China’s importance as home to roughly half of the world’s A.I. researchers, the second-largest computing market globally and its status as a leader in open-source models through releases from DeepSeek and Qwen. Such advances, Huang argued, should be supported by U.S. technology to “help make the American tech stack the global standard.”
China’s A.I. market could represent a $50 billion opportunity for Nvidia, one that grows at 50 percent a year, said Huang. Globally, A.I.-native startups have already raised $180 billion in 2025, up from $100 billion last year, according to the CEO. Their revenues are growing even faster, reaching $20 billion this year, compared with $2 billion in 2024. “Next year being ten times higher than this year is not inconceivable,” he said.
In other business, Nvidia’s gaming division generated $4.2 billion in quarterly sales, while its professional visualization and equipment manufacturer units brought in $601 million and $173 million, respectively. Nvidia’s auto and robotics segment remains small, at just 1 percent of overall sales. Yet its $586 million in revenue marked a 69 percent year-over-year jump, reflecting Nvidia’s push into “physical A.I.” “As a result of agentic A.I. and vision-language models, we are now seeing a breakthrough in physical A.I. in robotics and autonomous systems,” Huang told analysts.
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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MANILA, Philippines — Asian shares were mixed Thursday after modest gains on Wall Street lifted the S&P 500 to another all-time high ahead of computer chip maker Nvidia’s highly anticipated earnings report.
U.S. futures also were mixed and oil prices declined.
In China, shares in computer chip maker Cambricon Technologies surged 7.1% to 1,469.99 yuan ($205.60), becoming the priciest stock on Shanghai’s exchange as it surpassed Kweichou Moutai’s stock, which was unchanged at 1,449 yuan ($202.51) a share. Cambricon’s shares have jumped after it reported its revenue and profit soared in the first half of the year, helped by the Chinese government’s support for domestic semiconductor makers.
The Shanghai Composite index edged less than 0.1% higher to 3,803.08. It has been trading near decade-high levels on heavy buying by institutional investors.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.7% to 25,035.78, led by losses for technology companies like food delivery company Meituan. Its shares dropped 10.3%, while e-commerce giant JD.com declined 3.5%. Such companies have seen demand sag as Chinese consumers cut back on spending.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.6% to 42,755.61. It has been trading near record levels, despite friction with Washington over a preliminary trade agreement that has yet to be finalized. Top trade envoy Ryohei Akazawa abruptly postponed a trip to the U.S. capital planned for Thursday in the latest sign of trouble over the deal setting tariffs on Japanese exports at 15%, a policy that has yet to come into effect.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.4% to 3,200.71 after the Bank of Korea kept its policy rate unchanged at 2.5% for its second straight meeting.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% higher to 8,970.30. India’s BSE Sensex fell 1.1%, reopening following a public holiday after higher U.S. tariffs on the country’s exports took effect on Wednesday.
Taiwan’s TAIEX shed 0.7%.
Stock indexes in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were both 0.4% higher, while that in Manila was down 0.5% near midday.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.2%, nudging past the record high it set two weeks ago to close at 6,481.40.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 45,565.23, and the Nasdaq composite closed 0.2% higher at 21,590.14.
Technology companies led the way higher, outweighing declines in communication services and other sectors.
After the market closed, Nvidia’s quarterly report showed its earnings and revenue topped Wall Street analysts’ forecasts, though the company noted that sales of its artificial intelligence chipsets rose at a slower pace than analysts anticipated. The stock fell 3.2% in after-hours trading after having slipped 0.1% during the regular session.
Investors consider Nvidia a barometer for the strength of the boom in artificial intelligence because the company makes most of the chips that power the technology. Its heavy weighting also gives Nvidia outsized influence as a bellwether for the broader market.
Trading on Wall Street was off to an uneven start this week following big gains last week on hopes for interest rate cuts from the Fed.
Markets have been subdued since Trump escalated his fight with the central bank by trying to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Cook’s lawyer said she’ll sue Trump’s administration to try to stop him.
Trump has been feuding with the central bank over its cautious interest rate policy. The Fed has held rates steady since late 2024 over worries that Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies will reignite inflation.
In other dealings early Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude dropped 52 cents to $63.63 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 49 cents to $66.95 per barrel.
The dollar fell to 147.19 Japanese yen early Thursday, down from 147.40 yen. The euro rose to $1.1641 from $1.1640.
___ AP Business Writer Alex Veiga contributed.
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Stock futures edged up on Sunday evening as Wall Street looks ahead to another big week that will feature earnings from AI chip leader Nvidia and another inflation update.
Markets are coming off a monster rally on Friday, when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell opened the door to a rate cut next month.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 24 points, or 0.05%. S&P 500 futures were up 0.05%, and Nasdaq futures added 0.06%. On Friday, the Dow hit a new all-time high, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed in on their records.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury was flat at 4.256% after diving Friday on rate-cut expectations. The U.S. dollar was down 0.02% against the euro and flat against the yen.
Gold fell 0.13% to $3,413.80 per ounce. U.S. oil prices rose 0.2% to $63.79 per barrel, and Brent crude added 0.15% to $67.83.
Friday’s stock surge came after a big selloff that was led by tech giants, as doubts have grown about the AI boom and how much it will actually help companies.
That’s after a recent report from MIT found that 95% of AI pilot programs at businesses are failing to produce much of a return.
Adding to those concerns were remarks from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who drew a parallel between today’s AI frenzy and the 1990s dot-com bubble.
Wall Street’s faith in the staying power of AI as an investment thesis will be put to the test when Nvidia reports quarterly earnings after the close on Wednesday.
The report also comes after Nvidia and AMD agreed to an unprecedented deal where they give the federal government a 15% cut of their chip sales to China.
For now, demand from U.S. companies remains high as so-called hyperscaler tech giants Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta Platforms alone are expected to deploy $400 billion in capital expenditures this year, and most of that is going to AI.
On Friday, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge is due as policymakers wait and see how much of an effect on inflation President Donald Trump’s tariffs are having.
Earlier updates on the consumer price index and the producer price index were mixed, and analysts expect the personal consumption expenditures index for July to rise 0.2% on a monthly basis and 2.6% on a yearly basis, the same annual rate as June.
But the core PCE is seen climbing 0.3% on a monthly basis and 2.9% on a yearly basis, accelerating from June’s 2.8% annual rate.
Still, some Fed officials, including Powell, have indicated that tariff-related impacts on inflation may be short term and that more attention should go to the labor market, which has shown signs of weakening.
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Jason Ma
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Intuit’s investments in emerging technology looks to be paying off. In the early stages of AI tool deployment, Intuit is observing positive consumer feedback and significantly higher repeat usage cases, Chief Executive Sasan Goodarzi said during the company’s Aug. 21 earnings call, adding that Intuit will be “doubling down in these key [AI] areas” […]
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Vaidik Trivedi
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The financial impact of the Trump administration’s shifting tariff policy is reaching the shelves of America’s biggest retailers. Walmart, the largest of them all, warned this week that levy-driven price hikes will only become more common. “As we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we’ve continued to see our costs increase each week,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on the retailer’s second-quarter earnings call. He added that the trend will likely persist through the rest of 2025.
Walmart first flagged price increases back in May, cautioning it could not fully absorb the financial hit of tariffs—a warning drew President Donald Trump’s ire. Trump publicly demanded that Walmart “EAT THE TARIFFS.” Around one-third of Walmart’s merchandise is produced abroad, with heavy reliance on imports from China, Mexico, Vietnam and India.
Despite the pressures, Walmart topped revenue estimates with $177.4 billion sales for the May-July quarter, up 4.8 percent year-over-year. Net income, however, came in at $7 billion, missing Wall Street’s profit expectations. McMillon said customer behavior hasn’t shifted dramatically overall, but noted that middle- and lower-income shoppers are more likely to switch products or categories in response to rising prices compared with higher-income households.
Target, one of Walmart’s biggest rivals, has so far been more hesitant to raise prices. “What we’ve said, and it continues to be our position, is that we’ll take price as a last resort,” Target CFO Rick Gomez said during its Aug. 20 earnings call.
Still, Target acknowledged the pressure tariffs are creating. The company, which announced this week that CEO Brian Cornell will step down next year, projected a low single-digit sales decline in 2025. “Obviously, the straight cost impact of tariffs will be with us as long as the tariffs are with us,” Fiddelke told analysts. Target nevertheless beat estimates on both revenue and net income for the quarter.
Home Depot, meanwhile, has reversed course on its earlier pledge to avoid price hikes. In May, the company said it would instead get rid of some product options. But during its Aug. 19 earnings call, Home Depot’s executive vice president of merchandising, Billy Bastick, said that plan has changed. “There’ll be some modest price movement in some categories, but it won’t be broad-based,” he said, adding that Home Depot is also scaling back promotional activity in certain areas to offset tariff costs.
The broader economic environment is weighing on the company’s performance. Home Depot reported $45 billion in sales and $4.5 billion in net income for the quarter, falling short of Wall Street’s expectations for the first time since 2014.
Home Depot’s rival, Lowe’s, in contrast, impressed Wall Street this week. The home improvement chain reported $2.4 billion in net income on nearly $24 billion in revenue, which matched analyst expectations. CEO Marvin Ellison emphasized the company’s strategy of sourcing more goods domestically. About 60 percent of Lowe’s merchandise now comes from the U.S., while imports from China have dropped to 20 percent—down significantly from seven years ago.
Pricing remains a “dynamic” environment for the time being, said Ellison, who added that Lowe’s will fluctuate its prices depending on additional factors like competitive responses and internal algorithms. “We’re managing this literally in real time because this is uncharted waters,” he said.
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Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
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Jack Henry signed 51 new core deals during its fiscal 2025 ended June 30. “Additionally, we signed 37 contracts to move existing in-house core clients to our private cloud, including 11 in Q4,” Chief Executive Greg Adelson said Aug. 20 during the tech provider’s fourth-quarter earnings call. Following those moves, 77% of its core […]
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Whitney McDonald
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Payments giant Mastercard is eyeing the stablecoin market — but its plans don’t include issuing cryptocurrency. Instead, Mastercard aims to develop the rails on which stablecoins will function, Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president for blockchain and digital assets, told Bank Automation News. “We see our role in [stablecoins] as we look at what we do […]
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Vaidik Trivedi
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