World shares mostly higher on Friday
World shares were mostly higher on Friday after the worst day for Nvidia’s stock since last spring dragged US stocks lower. US futures fell as investors focused on comments by Block CEO Jack Dorsey on his company’s decision to lay off 40 per cent of its workforce because of labour-saving artificial intelligence.
The future for the S&P 500 edged 0.1 per cent lower while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3 per cent. Germany’s DAX rose 0.3 per cent to 25,373.74, while the CAC 40 picked up less than 0.1 per cent to 8,625.54. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.5 per cent to 10,904.24. In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 edged 0.2 per cent higher to 58,850.27.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng jumped 1 per cent to 26,630.54, while the Shanghai Composite index advanced 0.4 per cent to 4,162.88.South Korea’s Kospi lost 1 per cent to 6,244.13 as traders sold to lock in profits from recent gains. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.3 per cent higher at 9,198.60, while India’s Sensex lost 0.8 per cent.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 shed 0.5 per cent and the Dow industrials added less than 0.1 per cent . The Nasdaq composite sank 1.2 per cent to 22,878.38.US inflation data is due out later Friday. A report showed that the number of US workers applying for unemployment benefits ticked up last week, but not by any more than economists expected. It also remains relatively low
compared with history. Nvidia, whose chips are helping to power the AI boom, reported another stellar quarter of profit growth that breezed past analysts’ expectations. Its forecast for revenue in the current quarter again topped Wall Street estimates.
But such blowout performances have become so typical for Nvidia that they’re losing their oomph. Its stock sank 5.5 per cent for its worst loss since April.
Shares in Block, formerly known as Square, gained 5 per cent on Thursday before it reported better than expected earnings, and then shot up more than 20 per cent after the markets closed following Dorsey’s comments on laying off about 4,000 of its 10,000 employees.
“We believe Block will be signficantly more valuable as a smaller, faster, intelligence-native company. Everything we do from here is in service of that,” Dorsey wrote in a letter to shareholders. Dorsey “just did what most CEOs have only
whispered about in boardrooms,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management wrote in a commentary.
“For years we’ve debated whether AI would dent jobs at the margin. Now we have a public case study where the CEO explicitly says intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” he said.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, shares in streaming giant Netflix jumped 7.9 per cent in pre-market trading after it walked away from its bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business. That put Skydance-owned Paramount in a position to take over its Hollywood rival.
Netflix said the price required to buy Warner after its board announced that Paramount’s offer was superior would make it a deal that is “no longer financially attractive.”On Thursday, Warner Bros. Shares edged down 0.3 per cent after the entertainment giant reported a $252 million loss for the fourth quarter.
In other dealings early Friday, US benchmark crude oil gained 89 cents to $66.10 per barrel. Crude prices have been swinging while the United States and Iran held indirect talks about Iran’s nuclear programme. A barrel of US crude briefly fell as low as $63.60 on Thursday before it bounced back.
The two sides walked away from the latest talks without a deal. That left the danger of another Mideast war on the table as the US has gathered a massive fleet of aircraft and warships in the region.
A peaceful solution would lessen the threat of war, which could disrupt the global flow of oil and drive prices higher.Brent crude, the international standard, gained 79 cents early Friday to $71.63 per barrel.
