Tonight's Highlights | The Sanctions Turmoil on Russian Oil Drives Oil Prices Higher, and US Stock Index Futures Continue to Trade Weakly and Range - bound
With the share prices of Tesla and IBM weakening after releasing their financial reports, coupled with the geopolitical risk concerns triggered by the escalation of oil - related sanctions against Russia by the US and Europe, the three major US stock index futures continued the weak volatil pattern before the market on Thursday.
As of the time of writing, the Nasdaq 100 Index futures (contract 2512) fell 0.26%, the S&P 500 Index futures fell 0.15%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 0.22%. The prices of gold and silver, which are of great concern to investors, rebounded during the day. Spot gold is currently fluctuating around $4,100 per ounce.
(The daily chart of the S&P 500 Index, source: TradingView)
As the latest impact of the geopolitical conflict, the international oil price soared in the short - term on Thursday. As of the time of writing, Brent crude oil rose more than 4%. According to the news, the United States included two major Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in the sanctions list, and the European Union also passed a new round of sanctions against Russia's energy infrastructure.
The news on Thursday also showed that the latest sanctions are affecting the purchases of India, a major buyer of Russian oil. People familiar with the matter said that Reliance Industries, India's largest buyer of Russian oil, plans to reduce or stop importing Russian oil. A Reliance spokesman responded, "The recalibration of Russian oil imports is in progress, and Reliance will fully comply with the guidelines of the Government of India."
Driven by the rise in oil prices, the share prices of oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and Total rose.
At the same time, the discussion on the valuation of US stocks continues. This week, two nuclear - power bull stocks, NuScale Power and Oklo, both plunged after facing serious valuation doubts.
Chris Grisanti, the chief market strategist of MAI Asset Management, advised investors to cash in some profits at high prices, and also said, "People often say that history does not repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes. I mean, this bet is quite close... You can see the meme - stocks (rising sharply). Some companies are priced according to the expectations for 2030 or 2035. These are the things we saw in 1998 and 1999, which is really creepy."
Speaking of meme - stocks, Beyond Meat, a volatile stock in the plant - based meat sector that once soared by more than 100% yesterday and gave back all its gains during the intraday session, fell nearly 20% before the market on Thursday.
Other market news
Quick Review of US Stock Earnings Season News
Tesla's stock price fell more than 3% before the market. The company's Q3 revenue reached a record high, but its profit declined. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, also adjusted down the short - term goals of the Robotaxi business and the Optimus robot.
IBM's stock price fell more than 7% before the market. Although the company's revenue and profit exceeded expectations, the revenue growth rate of the Red Hat hybrid - cloud business in the third quarter slowed down and was lower than analysts' expectations.
Honeywell's stock price rose more than 3% before the market. Its financial report fully exceeded expectations, and it raised the profit guidance for the fiscal year 2025.
Nokia's stock price rose more than 5% before the market. The sales growth of the optical communication business was driven by the demand for artificial intelligence and cloud services.
Trump Administration Reportedly in Talks to Take Stake in Quantum Computing Company
As of the time of writing, the US quantum computing sector generally rose. IonQ rose 9.5%, Rigetti Computing rose 10.34%, D - Wave Quantum rose 16%, and Quantum Computing rose 12%.
According to the news, several US quantum computing companies are currently in talks with the US Department of Commerce, planning to replicate the previous "Intel model" - exchanging equity for federal funds support.
Six AI Live - trading Competitions: Two Chinese Models Take the Lead, GPT 5 Suffers a Loss of Over 70%
In the AI live - trading competition of the US artificial intelligence research laboratory nof1.ai, six top - tier models each received $10,000 for live - trading. As of Thursday evening, The total market value of Alibaba's Qwen model's positions was $13,700, with a yield of more than 37%, leading other artificial intelligence models.
The second - ranked DeepSeek had a total market value of positions close to $1.24 trillion, with a yield of about 24%.
The other four AI models of US companies were all in a loss state, and the worst - performing GPT 5 had only $2,761 left in its account.
Volvo Cars Soars by More than 30%
Due to the better - than - expected third - quarter profit announced on Thursday, the share price of Swedish carmaker Volvo Cars soared by more than 30%. The company announced that its operating income from July to September was 6.4 billion Swedish kronor ($680 million), far higher than analysts' expectations and higher than the 5.8 billion Swedish kronor in the same period last year.
This performance was mainly due to its ongoing cost - saving plan of 18 billion Swedish kronor and a number of one - time projects.