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US stocks ticked higher on Thursday after President Donald Trump said he plans to introduce reciprocal tariffs later in the day. Meanwhile, investors digested another report that suggested inflation is once again heating up.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) increased 0.3% while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained 0.2% after closing lower on Wednesday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose 0.3%.
Markets are on alert after Trump signaled in a social media post that his promised like-for-like tariffs will arrive later on Thursday. “Today is the big one: reciprocal tariffs,” he wrote.
The reciprocal tariffs could target any country that imposes import duties on US products, meaning they have the potential to upend the US’s relationships around the globe. They would be the latest in a Trump tariff overhaul that risks spurring inflation and sparking a global trade war.
Those concerns had investors bracing for another read on inflation, after January’s hot consumer print dented optimism for an interest rate cut anytime soon. The Producer Price Index (PPI) — which measures prices seen at the wholesale level — showed price pressures remain sticky. Prices jumped 0.4% from December and 3.5% over the past year, both coming in hotter than economists expected.
Meanwhile, markets are assessing the prospects for an end to the Ukraine war, after Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to start holding peace talks. The dollar (DX-Y.NYB, DX=F) fell after the news.
Earnings season rolls on, looking solid after a majority of beats from the almost 70% of S&P 500 companies to have reported so far. Robinhood (HOOD) shares soared on the heels of a fourth-quarter profit beat. But Reddit’s (RDDT) stock tumbled amid a miss in user growth at the social media company.
The highlights late Thursday include Airbnb (ABNB), Applied Materials (AMAT), and Coinbase (COIN).
LIVE 5 updates
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Musk will stop $97.4 billion OpenAI bid if board stops for-profit conversion
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Keenan reports:
Elon Musk is willing to pull his $97.4 billion bid for the nonprofit that oversees OpenAI if its directors agree to stop the transformation of the ChatGPT maker to a for-profit enterprise, escalating his long-running feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“If [the] OpenAI board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” lawyers for Musk said in a court document Wednesday.
Musk’s lawyers said in their filing that Altman breached his responsibility to OpenAI’s charitable nonprofit by single-handedly turning down the takeover bid from a Musk-led investor group before OpenAI’s board had reviewed it.
Read more here.
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Stocks shake off more expected tariffs, sticky inflation data
US stocks gained on Thursday, shaking off an expected announcement on reciprocal tariffs from President Trump later in the day while investors digested a hotter than expected read on wholesale prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose 0.3% while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) also gained 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) increased 0.3%.
President Trump indicated he would announce reciprocal tariffs today that would potentially target countries which impose levies on US goods.
The new tariffs would come on the heels of levies on steel and aluminum imports announced earlier this week, and duties on some Chinese goods which went into effect last week.
Meanwhile the Producer Price Index in January rose 0.4%, more than the expected increase of 0.3%. The reading highlighted the Fed still has work to do in order to bring inflation down to a 2% target.
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Wholesale prices rise more than expected in January as inflation remains sticky
Wholesale prices ticker higher than expected last month, highlighting that the Federal Reserve fight against sticky inflation isn’t over.
The Producer Price Index in January rose 0.4%, more than the expected increase of 0.3%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Thursday morning.
Meanwhile January’s PPI rose 3.5% from a year ago.
The reading for the month of December was revised up to 0.5%, from 0.2%.
The major averages shook off the hotter than expected reading, with futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F) and S&P 500 (ES=F) both rising slightly. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) rose 0.4% in pre-market.
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Good morning. Here’s what’s happening today.
Economic data: Producer Price Index (January); Initial jobless claims (week ending Feb. 8)
Earnings: Airbnb (ABNB), Applied Materials (AMAT), Coinbase (COIN), Crocs (CROX), Datadog (DDOG), Duke Energy (DUK), DraftKings (DKNG), John Deere (DE), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Roku (ROKU), Sony (SONY), Twilio (TWLO), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), Cisco Systems (CSCO)
Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed over the weekend and early this morning:
Inflation uncertainty keeps looming over markets
Trump and Putin agree to negotiate end to Ukraine war
Meta is winning over Wall Street while the rest of Big Tech struggles
Elon Musk calls for US government to ‘delete entire agencies’
Goldman’s Rubner sees US stock risk as ‘everbody is in the pool’
Musk will pull OpenAI bid if ChatGPT maker remains a non-profit, lawyers say
Apple’s iPhone Will Use Alibaba AI in China, Joe Tsai Says
Oil falls further as Trump flags Russia talks to end Ukraine war
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Asian shares rise, optimism driven by US-Russian peace talks and AI hype
Asian shares rose Thursday, driven by optimism surrounding US President Donald Trump’s agreement with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the Ukraine war. This, along with the possibility of Trump pausing some tariffs, boosted market sentiment, despite Wall Street’s decline the day before.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 (^N225) gained 1.3%, while South Korea’s Kospi (^KS11) rose 0.9%. However, the Shanghai Composite (000888.SS) dipped 0.2%.
In energy markets, oil prices declined, with Brent crude (BZ=F) falling 2.7% to below $72 a barrel, partly due to optimism over US-Russia peace talks. These declines and a 3% drop in Exxon Mobil’s (XOM) stock added to market pressures. Despite this, Asian investors were more focused on the potential resolution of the Ukraine conflict and the growing strength of China’s tech sector, which continues to see gains on the back of DeepSeek AI hype.
