What moved markets
Asian stock markets rose as robust earnings and renewed appetite for technology stocks pushed Wall Street to record highs. [2] Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s benchmark both advanced sharply, but the two reports give different estimates: 3.5% versus 3.0% for the Nikkei, and 4.3% versus 3.4% for South Korea. [2] [3] The reported rise in MSCI’s broadest Asia-Pacific share index outside Japan also differs, at 2.3% in one account and 1.5% in the other. [2] [3] Chinese blue chips gained 1.5%. [2]
The technology rally was not uniform. AMD fell after hours despite beating analysts’ earnings expectations, with reported declines of 8.8% and 9%. [2] [3] SpaceX shares fell 7.5% amid concerns that capital spending was consuming cash, while as many as 912 million employee and other pre-IPO shares were scheduled to become eligible for sale. [2]
Earnings versus spending
The earnings season has made spending and cash preservation important signals for investors in artificial-intelligence-related stocks. [4] Meta Platforms and Alphabet were penalized after signaling higher capital expenditure, while Microsoft was rewarded after reporting faster cloud growth and indicating that it would limit new capital spending that year. [4] Microsoft shares rose 16%, while Meta shares fell 8% after a disappointing revenue forecast and its lowest free cash flow in years. [4]
Companies supplying technologies that enable artificial intelligence were also among the outperformers, including Lam Research, Schneider Electric and Prysmian. [4] Amazon shares rose 15% after upbeat cloud-computing revenue, and a UBS basket of AI winners gained 11% over two sessions after reassuring earnings reports. [4] The available reporting establishes these different market responses but does not establish a single outcome for all technology companies.
Rates, oil and uncertainty
The 10-year US Treasury yield was reported at either 4.603% or 4.6187%, both below the previous week’s 4.747% high. [2] [3] Markets reduced the reported probability of a September Federal Reserve rate hike from 67% to 57%, while Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid called for tighter policy to return inflation to the central bank’s 2% target. [2] [3]
Oil prices also fell, but the reports differ on both changes and levels: Brent was reported down 0.6% to $78.85 or down 0.4% to $79.02, while US crude was reported down 0.9% to $75.09 or down 0.5% to $75.35. [2] [3] Ship-tracking estimates put Strait of Hormuz flows at perhaps 40% to 45% of pre-war levels; one analyst said flows would need to reach 50% to 60% to create oversupply conditions. [2]
The accounts also differ on currency levels and gold’s advance: the euro was listed at $1.1537 or $1.1532, the dollar at 157.63 or 157.53 yen, and gold at $4,140 after a 1.6% rise or $4,080 after a 0.1% rise. [2] [3] The Reuters-linked report cannot be assessed here because its complete article content was unavailable. [1]