Wall Street closed mixed on Thursday and the U.S. benchmark Treasury yield eased after scaling the highest level since May in light, directionless post-Christmas trading.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.07% to 43,325.80, the S&P 500 fell 0.04% to 6,037.59 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.05% to 20,020.357.
Market Movers
Tesla Motors was down 1.8% after rising 7.4% on Tuesday. Tesla has gained 83% this year. The electric-vehicle maker will be releasing fourth-quarter deliveries next week. Analysts expect Tesla to deliver roughly 510,00 vehicles, according to various consensus aggregators, a record for any quarter.
Shares of SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC were falling 2% after gaining 6% on Tuesday. The stock has traded between $18 and $119 since Jan. 1. For the year, Super Micro stock has gained 20%. The company has delayed filing its latest financial reports but earlier this month received an extension until Feb. 25, which helped it avoid the immediate threat of delisting from the Nasdaq.
MicroStrategy, the world's largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, tumbled 5% after rising 7.8% on Tuesday and declining 8% on Monday. In a filing late Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, MicroStrategy asked shareholders for approval to boost the authorized number of the company's class A common shares outstanding to 10.33 billion from the current 330 million. Andrew Bary of Barron's noted that would be enough stock at MicroStrategy's current share price to purchase all of the world's Bitcoin, or nearly 20 million coins. Bitcoin has fallen 3.6% over the past 24 hours to $95,541.
GameStop rose 6%. Keith Gill -- the influential trader known as "Roaring Kitty" -- issued a tweet on Christmas Day of a photo of a wrapped gift without comment. While the meaning of the tweet was unclear, it served as a cue to his followers to look at shares of the videogame retailer. GameStop stock has climbed 87% this year, even as sales declined year over year for five quarters.
Uber fell 0.2% after the ride-hailing company's planned $950 million takeover of Delivery Hero's Foodpanda delivery business in Taiwan was blocked on anti-competition concerns. In a statement, Uber expressed its disappointment with the decision from Taiwan's antitrust regulators but pledged to continue to invest in Taiwan, dubbing it "one of the global markets with the highest growth and full of food delivery business opportunities."
Netflix fell 1% after the streaming giant's first foray into broadcasting National Football League games went off with few glitches on Christmas Day, in contrast with its broadcast last month of a boxing match between Jake Paul, a 27-year-old internet influencer, and Mike Tyson, a 58-year-old former heavyweight champion. That show was hit with technical issues, with users reporting significant buffering and lag times.
Apple rose 0.3% after Wedbush analysts raised their price target on the stock to $325, a Wall-Street high, from $300. The analysts anticipate "a renaissance of growth" with the rollout of Cupertino 18.2, Apple's latest iPhone operating system, which comes loaded with new artificial-intelligence features. The company was on pace to cross the $4 trillion market cap threshold. Apple's market cap was $3.91 trillion on Thursday.
U.S.-listed shares of Toyota climbed 9% on a report from Nikkei Asia that said the company aims to double its return-on-equity target, a key profitability metric, to 20%. The Japanese auto maker said Wednesday that its global production declined for a 10th consecutive month in November, although worldwide sales increased for the second month in a row.
Rigetti Computing surged 36%. Shares of the California-based integrated systems company have seen gains of 1,381% this year as part of a broader rally of quantum computing stocks. Rivals D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing were up 25% and 12%, respectively.
Market News
Elon Musk Says He Prefers Lilly’s Mounjaro over Novo’s Ozempic
An X post from Elon Musk on Wednesday highlighted Tesla CEO's newfound preference for Eli Lilly's weight loss therapy Mounjaro over Novo Nordisk's (NVO) rival product Ozempic.
Known as tirzepatide and semaglutide in generic terms, Mounjaro and Ozempic belong to a new class of diabetes drugs called GLP-1s, marketed as Zepbound and Wegovy for weight loss, respectively.
Palantir, Salesforce Lead Charge in Monetizing AI in 2025: Wedbush
Palantir Technologies Inc. and Salesforce.com appear well positioned to take the lead among software firms in monetizing artificial intelligence applications headed into 2025, according to Wedbush.
AI spending among enterprises is expected to take up a larger share of IT budgets in 2025.
"Palantir has been a major focus during the AI Revolution with expanding use cases for its marquee products leading to a larger partner ecosystem with rapidly rising demand across the landscape for enterprise-scale and enterprise-ready generative AI," said Wedbush analysts, led by Daniel Ives, in a December 26 note.
