Tonight's Highlights: Nvidia Blowout Reignites AI Trade; Nasdaq 100 Futures Gain Nearly 1%
U.S. equity futures traded mixed on Thursday. Dow contracts slipped modestly, while Nasdaq 100 futures rallied nearly 1% following blockbuster earnings from Nvidia. Major European bourses traded mostly lower.
Nvidia topped Wall Street estimates across all major metrics after Wednesday's closing bell and issued an aggressive forward outlook, projecting 70% revenue growth for fiscal 2028.
Strong earnings prints from CrowdStrike and Salesforce—both citing surging enterprise AI demand—lent additional momentum to technology shares.
In pre-market trade, Nvidia surged over 6%, while CrowdStrike and Salesforce each advanced approximately 10%.
The rally positions Nvidia to break a multi-quarter pattern of post-earnings pullbacks following consensus-beating prints.
"We remain high-conviction believers in the broader AI structural growth narrative, which underpins our constructive stance on equities," UBS Global Wealth Management CIO Mark Haefele's team wrote in a Thursday client note.
"While debates around capex sustainability and vendor financing arrangements may spur periodic tech volatility, the Q2 reporting cycle confirms underlying fundamentals remain resilient," the UBS analysts added.
Crude benchmarks traded range-bound as market participants tracked diplomatic negotiations aimed at easing tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.
Company News
Nvidia Reportedly Nearing $12.9B Acquisition of Hugging Face
Nvidia has agreed to acquire open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Talks accelerated after Hugging Face received takeover interest from another suitor.
Hugging Face provides a collaborative ecosystem for hosting, testing, and sharing open-source models and datasets. The deal would expand Nvidia's reach across developer software and open-source model ecosystems.
Kioxia to Invest Over ¥1T in New Japan NAND Fab
Kioxia Holdings plans to invest more than ¥1 trillion (approximately $6.3 billion) to construct a NAND flash memory fabrication facility in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Kioxia is scheduled to formally announce the project on August 27.
Salesforce Expands Anthropic Partnership with Claude Sales Integration
Salesforce and Anthropic announced an expanded partnership on August 26, introducing "Salesforce in Claude." The integration features 37 pre-built sales workflows, allowing enterprise agents to update sales pipelines and execute CRM workflows directly within the Claude interface using real-time deal telemetry.
The companies plan deeper cross-platform integrations spanning Claude, Salesforce, and Slack.
SK Group to Sell 49% Stake in Ulsan AI Datacenter to KKR Consortium
SK Group plans to divest a 49% stake in its Ulsan AI datacenter to a private equity syndicate. Boards of SK Telecom and SK Broadband are set to approve the transaction on August 27.
KKR will take a 29% equity interest, while a consortium of IMM Investment and Stonebridge Capital will acquire 20%. The deal values the asset at roughly 3 trillion won, including a 1.2 trillion won capital injection.
SK Telecom to Carve Out SK Broadband Unit with 3.08T Won Private Equity Backing
SK Telecom announced on August 27 the spin-off of its wholly owned subsidiary SK Broadband into a surviving entity and a newly established unit, SK Horizon.
SK Telecom finalized agreements with KKR and the IMM-Stonebridge consortium to invest 3.08 trillion won into SK Horizon. Following the transaction, SK Telecom will hold a 51% controlling stake, with KKR and the IMM-Stonebridge consortium holding 29% and 20%, respectively.
OpenAI Launches Direct Commercial Operations in Brazil
OpenAI formally launched commercial operations in Brazil on August 27, establishing a dedicated local team in São Paulo to support enterprise clients, developers, and public sector agencies.
Brazil ranks among ChatGPT's top three weekly active user markets globally, with local engagement nearly doubling year-over-year to 215 million daily messages. The country is OpenAI's second-largest developer market by API volume and the largest market for Codex across Latin America.
Moderna Proposes $2B Convertible Senior Notes Offering
Moderna announced on August 27 a private placement of $2.0 billion in zero-coupon convertible senior notes due 2032, with an option for initial purchasers to acquire up to an additional $300 million in notes within 13 days.
The notes carry no regular interest and will not accrete principal. Net proceeds will fund capped call transactions and general corporate purposes, including investments across its oncology pipeline and debt refinancing.
Samsung and SK Hynix Partner with Qualcomm on High-Bandwidth Computing
Qualcomm executive Durga Malladi stated at the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference on August 26 that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are collaborating with Qualcomm to commercialize High-Bandwidth Computing (HBC) architectures while advancing their standalone HBM roadmaps.
Qualcomm targets initial HBC commercial shipments in 2027 for its AI250 accelerator, followed by a second-generation HBC deployment on the AI300 platform in 2028.
Qualcomm leads processor architecture and system integration, Samsung and SK Hynix manage DRAM 3D-stacking, and TSMC will handle advanced packaging.
Novo Nordisk Files for Semaglutide Oral Tablet Approval in China
The Center for Drug Evaluation under China's National Medical Products Administration formally accepted Novo Nordisk's marketing application for oral semaglutide tablets (Wegovy®) indicated for long-term weight management on August 27.