Stock futures gained on Thursday as chip stocks rebounded from recent pressure and oil prices eased despite new U.S. strikes against Iran overnight.
S&P 500 futures gained 0.72%, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 1.2%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 378 points, or 0.75%.
Micron, AMD and Intel rebounded in premarket trading and the iShares Semiconductor ETF gained 3%. The chip ETF was under pressure again this week following a 10% drubbing on Friday that’s called many investors to question whether the parabolic move in the sector was over. Intel was upgraded by Bank of America from underperform to buy on Thursday and the shares responded with a 4% premarket gain.
The chip rebound came as enthusiasm builds ahead of SpaceX’s debut on Friday, which could highlight the expected growth in the AI buildout ahead. Although some traders believe the recent chip weakness is due to investors selling the stocks in their portfolios to make room for the IPO, which will be the largest debut ever at a $1.8 trillion valuation.
The tech gains Thursday came even as shares of Oracle dropped more than 9% as the software giant announced plans to raise an additional $20 billion in equity and debt to pay for its artificial intelligence buildout.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures came off their overnight highs and shed 1% to trade around $89 a barrel. U.S. Central Command forces launched more “self-defense strikes” against Iran late Wednesday, according to Centcom’s post on social media platform X. The attacks came at the direction of President Donald Trump, according to the post.
Stocks fell during Wednesday’s regular trading session, thanks to another rout in the chip sector and a ramp-up in tensions with Iran. The Dow tumbled 953.33 points, or 1.87%, while the S&P 500 fell 1.62%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 1.98%.
Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments, said that many investors are now buying into what they believe to be the opposite of the artificial intelligence trade that drove stocks for much of this year.
“I think what people are saying are, where can we go that kind of hedges that tech trade? What would be the antithesis of the momentum and the beta?” she said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re seeing that rotation out of tech into some things that have been beaten down a little bit over the past months.”
Fernandez added that she’s seen her clients increasingly put money into other areas such as pharmaceuticals and biotech within healthcare, as well as the financials and energy sectors.
Investors will be keeping a close eye on May’s producer price index reading, which will be released on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the wholesale inflation reading to have risen 0.7% on a monthly basis, while core inflation — which excludes volatile food and energy prices — is forecast to have added 0.5%. This is below the respective 1.4% and 1% headline and core increases in April.
The first Wall Street firms are out with their SpaceX recommendations
Two Wall Street firms initiated coverage on SpaceX, as Elon Musk’s company gets ready to launch its public markets debut at the Nasdaq on Friday.
Oppenheimer initiated coverage with an outperform rating and a 12- to 18-month price target of $190. That implies a gain of 40% from its IPO price of $135. Analyst Timothy Horan noted he expects the stock to be volatile, though the stock should gain to start.
New Street Research initiated coverage on company with a $165 12-month price target. That indicates a 22% gain from the IPO price. The firm did not initiate a rating on the stock.
Read the full story here.
— Davis Giangiulio and Sarah Min
Asia-Pacific markets close mixed as Middle East tensions rise
Asia-Pacific markets closed mixed Thursday, as Middle East tensions keep investors on tenterhooks.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 ended the day flat at 64,217.27, while South Korea’s Kospi rebounded from early losses to rise 0.43% to 7,763.95.
Hong Kong Hang Seng Index fell 0.77% in its last hour of trade, while mainland China’s CSI 300 dropped 0.55% to 4,722.41. Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.23% to 8,633.20.
— Justina Lee
European shares open higher; energy stocks jump
Stocks listed in Europe edged higher at the open on Thursday, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 adding around 0.4% by 8:30 a.m. in London (3:30 a.m. ET).
Oil and gas stocks were higher in early trading, leading regional gains on a 1.2% rise after oil prices rose amid escalating conflict in the Middle East.
— Chloe Taylor
Altman to talk AI with Samsung in South Korea on Monday: Yonhap
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be in South Korea next week to meet with Samsung’s executives on AI cooperation, according to a report on the Yonhap News Agency website that cited industry sources.
Altman, who is scheduled to visit Samsung‘s office in the south of Seoul on Monday, will deliver a lecture on AI technologies and strategies for AI-driven workplace innovation, Yonhap reported.
This will be Altman’s first trip to the country in about eight months. In his last visit in October, he held separate meetings with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. Altman signed letters with both companies after the meetings to work on the development of core global AI infrastructure.
— Justina Lee
South Korean retail giant slapped with record fine over data breach: Reuters
South Korean retail giant Coupang has reportedly been hit with a record fine of 624.7 billion won ($409 million) over a massive data breach and for the unauthorized collection of online user activities.
Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission fined Coupang 423.58 billion won ($277 million) over a data breach that affected more than 37 million users last November, according to a report on the Yonhap News Agency website.
The company was also fined an additional 201.16 billion won for the unauthorized collection of online user activities.
“This accident occurred due to Coupang’s lack of safety measures and systems, not sophisticated hacking,” Song Kyung-hee, the chairperson of the privacy regulator, told a briefing on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Coupang apologised after the fine was announced, Reuters reported.
Shares of the company were down almost 5% in the U.S.
— Lim Hui Jie
Cryptocurrency sector still in the early innings: Solana
The cryptocurrency sector is still in the early innings of what it can do, as building new financial structures from scratch could take decades to develop, said Lily Liu, president of public blockchain platform Solana.
“If you look at what time frame it took to build the internet, to build the underlying hardware, to build the underlying protocols of all of the infrastructure that we use today, that took decades before you had those breakthrough consumer moments in the ’90s,” Liu said, speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia.
Wall Street is also becoming more friendly towards crypto spaces, she noted, adding that “Wall Street has embraced crypto, crypto has been embraced [by] Wall Street.”
“For many folks on Wall Street, they simply see this as an incredible additional distribution channel, and if you’re an asset issuer, you can distribute your assets to a larger audience,” she added.
— Justina Lee, Matthew Chin
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slides over 2%, South Korea’s Kospi drops over 4%
Asia-Pacific markets opened lower Thursday, with South Korea’s Kospi leading losses.
The Kospi dropped 4.1% in early trading, while the small-cap Kosdaq lost 2.8%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 2.3% and the Topix slipped 1.9%.
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.97%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures last traded at 24,307, lower than the index’s Wednesday close of 24,407.96.
—Justina Lee
Asia-Pacific markets set to open lower as renewed Iran war worries fuel risk-off mood
Asia-Pacific markets were set to open lower Thursday, as fresh tensions in the Middle East and higher oil prices fuel risk-off sentiment.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was poised to decline, with the Chicago futures contract at 62,935 and its Osaka counterpart last trading at 63,140, compared with the index’s previous close of 64,179.27.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures last traded at 24,307, lower than the index’s Wednesday close of 24,407.96.
In Australia, futures for the S&P/ASX 200 last traded at 8,601, while the index closed at 8,653.30.
The U.S. started striking Iran on Wednesday, raising worries that the conflict escalating. In a post on X, U.S. Central Command said that the U.S. military began “launching additional self-defense strikes today at 5:15 p.m. ET against multiple targets in Iran at the Commander in Chief’s direction.”
Tehran has targeted U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz with missile and drone attacks, according to Iranian state media.
—Justina Lee
Fixed-income investors should stay high in quality amid geopolitical turmoil, says Pimco
Investors ought to stick with high quality assets in their fixed income portfolios as the global economy navigates turmoil in the Middle East and inflationary forces, according to Pimco’s 2026 secular outlook.
“Fragmentation is becoming evident around the world in energy prices, supply chain data, growth rates, and investment returns,” said the report, authored by global economic advisor Richard Clarida, chief investment officer of global fixed income Andrew Balls and CIO Dan Ivascyn. “The cost of complacency has surged. Investors can no longer rely on outdated assumptions about globalization, policy backstops, and suppressed volatility.”
However, investment opportunities remain abundant thanks to the generational reset in bond yields a few years ago, the Pimco team wrote. It just means staying up in quality.
“Investors can seek to construct globally diversified, high quality fixed income portfolios with yields of 5%–7% in local-currency terms – competitive with long-run equity returns at lower potential volatility,” they said.
The firm expects “significantly higher losses” in lower-credit quality assets.
— Michelle Fox
Stocks making the biggest moves after the bell: Oracle and Navan
These are the stocks moving the most in extended-hours trading:
- Oracle — Shares shed more than 9% after the software giant shared plans to raise an additional $20 billion in equity and debt to pay for its artificial intelligence buildout. However, the company reported an overall beat on both the top and bottom lines and raised its adjusted profit forecast for the year.
- Navan — Shares jumped 18% after the travel management platform guided for second-quarter and full-year revenue that came in above FactSet’s forecasts. Navan also reported a first-quarter non-GAAP earnings and revenue beat.
— Lisa Kailai Han
