A photo taken on November 23, 2023 shows the logo of the ChatGPT application developed by US artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI on a smartphone screen (left) and the letters AI on a laptop screen in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany.
Kirill Kudryavtsev | Afp | Getty Images
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
What you need to know today
Google’s answer to ChatGPT
Google owner Alphabet’s shares jumped 5% Thursday, a day after the company announced its latest artificial intelligence model, Gemini, that will compete with OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta offerings. The company will start licensing Gemini to customers through Google Cloud later this month — it remained unclear whether Google plans to monetize Gemini through all of its products in the long term.
Bye, losing streak
Wall Street’s main indexes rose Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 snapping three-day losing streaks. The Nasdaq Composite closed 1.37% higher, leading gains on a tech-driven rally. The 30-stock Dow added 0.17%, while the S&P 500 climbed 0.8% ahead of Friday’s all-important jobs report. Asia-Pacific markets were mixed, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 down 1.91% and Korea’s Kospi up 1.02%.
AMD ups the ante
AMD launched new artificial intelligence chips on Wednesday that will compete against Nvidia to power AI applications. Shares of the chipmaker surged 9.9% Thursday to close at $128.37, marking its best day since May and the highest close since June. Nvidia has dominated the AI chip market for the past year, but cloud providers and technology companies have been searching for a flexible alternative to save costs.
No yoga pants this Christmas
Lululemon, known for its yoga pants and belt bags, issued a tepid fourth-quarter outlook. The retailer said it was expecting sales between $3.14 billion and $3.17 billion during the quarter, just shy of analysts’ estimate of $3.18 billion, according to LSEG. This despite the company seeing strong third-quarter demand and a positive start to the holiday shopping season.
[PRO] These global stocks may be overbought
U.S. stocks aren’t they only ones doing well — global markets have also rallied in the past month. These are a few global stocks that may have been overbought but analysts still like them — giving one nearly 40% upside.
The bottom line
Oxford’s word of the year is “rizz”, which it defines as pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness and is derived from the middle part of the word ‘charisma’. On Wall Street, it might as well be “AI”.
Wall Street resumed its rally after a three-day break as technology giants intensified their AI arms race, lifting tech stocks.
When you have Google launching a new AI model and AMD eying a slice of the scorching AI chip pie, there are few surer ways to turn investors frowns upside down. Artificial intelligence, which perhaps wasn’t even part of our daily vocabulary five years ago, is now becoming more and more integrated with our day-to-day functioning.
But it is left to be seen if these gains could shine through Friday’s session that will be guided by fresh evidence on the strength of the U.S. labor market, which has been a key focus this week amid a series of mixed data releases that have left traders scratching their heads.
Weekly jobless claims released Thursday missed economists’ expectations, signaling the pace of layoffs hasn’t increased, while private payrolls data on Wednesday showed that employers added fewer-than-expected positions.
Meanwhile, the volume of job openings in October fell to its lowest level since March 2021, according to the Labor Department.
Friday’s official jobs report is expected to show 190,000 jobs were added in November, according to economists polled by Dow Jones. Higher than the prior month.
Investors would be watching for analysts’ commentary on whether the latest data releases will allow the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates on pause at its meeting next week.