Tonight's Highlights | Nasdaq Futures Surge Over 2% Pre-Market as Nvidia Earnings Dispel "Bubble" Fears
U.S. stock index futures climbed across the board in Thursday's pre-market trading, extending gains after the release of the nonfarm payrolls report.
As of press time, Dow Jones futures were up 1%, S&P 500 futures rose 1.64%, and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 2.1%.
Nvidia released its quarterly earnings after Wednesday's close, posting revenue and EPS that topped Wall Street expectations, along with robust guidance. CEO Jensen Huang noted the company has ample chips to meet surging demand.
During the earnings call, Huang addressed speculation: "There's a lot of talk about an AI bubble. But from our perspective, it's quite the opposite." He highlighted cloud providers' strong appetite for Nvidia's chips.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives called this quarter a key validation for the AI revolution, saying fears of an AI bubble have been "grossly overstated" and that Wall Street has consistently underestimated Nvidia's momentum.
Nvidia shares jumped 4.8% pre-market, lifting other AI-related names: Broadcom up over 4%, Google and AMD up more than 3%, Micron Technology, Meta, and Tesla up over 2%, and Microsoft and Amazon up more than 1%.
TradeStation Global Market Strategist David Russell remarked: "Nvidia's performance remains incredibly strong, but inevitably, questions arise about whether CEO Jensen Huang's company has peaked in growth and market share."
Shortly before press time, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported September's jobs data. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 119,000—well above the market's 50,000 estimate—while the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage points to 4.4%.
Ahead of the report, Bank J. Safra Sarasin equity strategist Wolf von Rotberg noted that September's data is "clearly outdated" and would only move markets if it far exceeded forecasts.
Interest rate swaps showed traders ramping up bets on Fed rate cuts after the data, though they still expect a skip in December.
Amundi SA Chief Investment Officer Vincent Mortier said: "Nothing is standing in the way of a Santa Claus rally right now. All signs point to this uptrend continuing in the short term."
European markets traded higher, with Germany's DAX up 1.1%, the UK's FTSE 100 up 0.7%, and France's CAC 40 up 1.06%.
Company News
Google Launches New Nano Banana Model
On November 20 local time, Google unveiled its next-generation multimodal AI model, the second-generation Nano Banana (codenamed Gemini 3.0 Pro Image), with the official designation Gemini 3 Pro Image preview.
Unlike traditional image models, Gemini 3 Pro Image is a reasoning model that performs internal deliberation before generating images—much like pondering the best way to tackle a task. This delivers marked improvements in image quality, accuracy, and multilingual long-text rendering.
Google's official blog states the model is tailored for the toughest image-generation challenges. It's now live on the Vertex AI platform and accessible via Google's Gen AI SDK (offering unified Python and Go interfaces) in Google AI Studio.
Meta Chief Scientist Yann LeCun Announces Departure to Launch Advanced Machine Intelligence Startup
On November 19 local time, Yann LeCun—Turing Award winner and Meta's Chief AI Scientist—announced on social media that he's leaving the company after 12 years to embark on his next chapter: founding a startup.
The new venture's core focus will be "Advanced Machine Intelligence" (AMI), aiming to "spark the next major AI revolution: systems that understand the physical world, retain long-term memory, reason effectively, and plan complex action sequences."
IBM and Cisco Announce Plans for Large-Scale, Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer Network
IBM and Cisco today revealed a collaboration to advance networked distributed quantum computing, targeting realization in the early 2030s. Leveraging IBM's expertise in building practical quantum computers and Cisco's innovations in quantum networking, the partnership will explore scaling large-scale, fault-tolerant systems beyond IBM's roadmap.
They'll also tackle core challenges for a quantum computing internet. Within five years, the duo aims to demo a proof-of-concept network linking individual large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers to handle computations across tens to hundreds of thousands of qubits. This could enable runs with trillions of quantum gates, powering breakthroughs in massive optimization, complex materials, and drug design.
U.S.'s Largest Rare Earth Producer to Build Plant in Saudi Arabia
On November 19, MP Materials—the biggest U.S. rare earth producer—announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden) to construct a rare earth refinery in Saudi Arabia.
The deal stems from agreements during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's U.S. visit. MP Materials and the DoD will hold 49% of the joint venture, with Ma'aden controlling at least 51%. Funding details are undisclosed, but MP will supply rare earth separation and refining tech.
Merck Releases Phase 3 Trial Results for Investigational Oral PCSK9 Inhibitor Enlicitide Decanoate
Merck recently presented results from the pivotal Phase 3 CORALreef Lipids and CORALreef HeFH trials at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions.
The CORALreef Lipids study evaluated once-daily oral PCSK9 inhibitor enlicitide in adults with severe atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) history or risk, on stable lipid-lowering therapy or statin-intolerant. It showed significant LDL-C reductions versus placebo.
Walmart Q3 Revenue Hits $179.5 Billion, Up 5.8% Year-Over-Year
Walmart reported Q3 revenue of $179.5 billion, a 5.8% increase from last year, beating the $177.4 billion estimate.
Adjusted EPS came in at $0.62, topping the $0.60 forecast. For fiscal 2026, the company guided net sales growth to 4.8%-5.1% on a constant-currency basis, down slightly from the prior 3.75%-4.75% range.
Crypto Exchange Kraken Confidentially Files for U.S. IPO
Payward Inc., parent of Kraken, announced it has confidentially submitted an IPO application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Details on share count and price range are pending; the offering will proceed post-SEC review, depending on market conditions.