The S&P 500 and the Dow boasted record closing highs on Thursday after a Federal Reserve policy update that was less hawkish than expected while the tech-heavy Nasdaq underperformed as Oracle's financial update made investors wary of artificial intelligence bets.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 646.26 points, or 1.34%, to 48,704.01, vaulting above its November 12 closing record. The S&P 500 gained 14.32 points, or 0.21%, to 6,901.00, breaching its October 28 record close. The Nasdaq Composite lost 60.30 points, or 0.25%, to 23,593.86. Alphabet, NVIDIA fell 2%; Robinhood fell 9%; Rocket Lab USA, Inc. up 10%.
Market Movers
Oracle sank 11% after the software and cloud-computing company raised its spending forecast and issued guidance that fell short of estimates. Doug Kehring, Oracle's principal financial officer, said the company's capital expenditures forecast for its current fiscal year will be $15 billion higher than it had previously projected.
Other companies exposed to the AI trade were falling. Chip maker Nvidia declined 1.6% after Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison said his company had adopted "chip neutrality" by buying Nvidia chips but also using other options if customers prefer.
Adobe gained 2.1%. The company reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings of $5.50 a share from revenue of $6.19 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting earnings of $5.40 a share from revenue of $6.11 billion
Synopsys was up 0.3% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and issuing an outlook that topped consensus views. Fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings came in at $2.90 a share, ahead of analysts' estimates of $2.78. Pressure on the broader tech sector appeared to stifle investor enthusiasm.
Ciena jumped 9.3%. The networking-equipment company posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that surpassed expectations and provided upbeat guidance for the coming fiscal year.
Walt Disney was up 2.4% after unveiling a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI. As part of the deal, Disney characters will be coming to Sora, OpenAI's video generating app.
Visa rose 6.1% to $345.63, heading for its largest same-day percentage increase since April, on the heels of a supportive note from BofA Securities. Shares of the card network were upgraded to Buy from Neutral with a $382 price target.
Planet Labs Pbc soared 35%. The space-based Earth imaging company reported break-even per-share earnings in the third quarter on revenue of $81.3 million. Wall Street was looking for a loss of 6 cents a share on revenue of $73.5 million.
Oxford sank 21%. The owner of the Tommy Bahama and Lilly Pulitzer brands cut its fiscal-year outlook and pointed to a weaker-than-expected start to the holiday shopping season that was driven by tariff-related impacts and "more choiceful" consumer spending.
Gemini Space Station Inc surged 32% after saying it had received a license to operate prediction markets. The cryptocurrency company founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss said Wednesday that its affiliate Gemini Titan has received a designated contract market license.
Cisco declined 1.2% after notching a record closing high Wednesday for the first time since March 27, 2000. Shares of the networking company have been boosted by excitement over demand for AI hardware.
Market News
Lululemon CEO McDonald to Step Down, Shares Rise 11%
Lululemon Athletica said that CEO Calvin McDonald was leaving the company without a replacement and raised its annual profit forecast, sending shares up about 11% in extended trade on Thursday.
McDonald will step down from Lululemon in January after about seven years at the helm.
Broadcom Shares Sink Despite Record Revenue
Broadcom reported rapid revenue growth on Thursday as demand continues to rise for chips to fill data centers that power artificial-intelligence models.
But shares fell in after-market trading as analysts raised questions about the company’s sales forecasts, contracts backlog and anticipated future margins.
Broadcom, which specializes in designing custom AI accelerator chips for companies like Google, OpenAI and Meta, as well as other networking, storage and memory chips essential to advanced computing, posted a profit of $8.518 billion, or $1.74 a share, in the fiscal fourth quarter that ended in early November, compared with $4.3 billion and 90 cents a year earlier.
Sam Altman Expects OpenAI to Exit “Code Red” by January After Launch of GPT-5.2 Model
OpenAI on Thursday announced its most advanced artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.2, and said it’s the best offering yet for everyday professional use.
The model is better than predecessors at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, perceiving images, writing code and understanding long context, OpenAI said. It will be available starting Thursday within OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot and its application programming interface (API).
