Grinding up:ย Wall Street rose againย with the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2k all hitting fresh record highs yesterday. Futures are a tad lower this morning with Europe looking pretty lacklustre as French stocks slide for a second day after its latest PM resigned.
AMDย leapt on OpenAI looking at taking a 10% stake in the chipmaker.ย OpenAI will deploy 6 gigawatts of AMDโs Instinct graphics processing units โ AMD rose over 23% on Monday. Seems a bit like a pass-the-parcel of equity and investment dollars – what happens when it all breaks?
Every company seems to have a stake in the next and is a customer of the other.ย Nvidiaย shares fell over 1%. Elsewhere,ย Teslaย shares rallied over 5% Monday after it posted a teaser video on X, potentially leading to a new car model.ย Archer Aviationย surged on speculation itโs involved with Tesla.
Plus รงa change:ย France is in the mire politically and fiscally. The problem is the parliamentary arithmetic doesnโt stack up and no government wants to fall on its sword to get the kind of reforms required to sort out the budget deficit. So, we end in a circular mess of failed governments and resigning prime ministers. President Macron has given the latest in this sorry line, Sebastien Lecornu, who resigned yesterday, two days to try sort something out.ย Macron looks cornered.
Pressure on French bonds and the widening in the Franco-German spread to highest since January put pressure on the euro butย EURUSD failed to break at the September lowsย at 1.1645, with 1.1650 marking yesterdayโs lows as the 50-day simple moving average is holding the support for now.
On an otherwise flat session for European stocks, French equities were hit hard yesterday but closed off the lows of the day. This morning,ย European shares got off to another tepid startย with the FTSE 100, CAC and DAX pretty well flat before Paris started to draw the pack lower. Japanโs Nikkei 225 hit a record high for a second straight session following the election of Sane Takaichi as prime minister.
Giving a boost to the FTSE,ย Shellย shares rose after it provided a positive trading update, signalling a rebound in oil and gas trading in the third quarter that will boost earnings. The company said it expects trading in its Integrated Gas and Marketing division to be โsignificantly higherโ than in Q2. The update gives a positive skew to the full third quarter results due on 30 October.
Elsewhere,ย Rentokilย jumped on an upgrade from Bernstein andย Imperial Brandsย rose after announcing a new ยฃ1.45bn share buyback scheme as profits look in line due to double-digit next-generation product sales growth and strong combustible pricing.ย B&M European Value Retailย tumbled 12% after a sharp decline in Q2 sales leave profits down 28% for the year….still early days of the turnaround though, but maybe the scale of the problem is a little worse than thought? New CEO Tjeerd Jegen, who took over in June, admits that execution has been “weak”, but management is taking “decisive actions” to turn it around.
Finally,ย gold is relentlessย โ up again to a fresh high overnight with spot prices at $3,977. People are now talking about FOMO…never thought you’d hear that with gold. Meanwhileย Bitcoin was near a record highย a day before retail investors in the UK are able toย access regulated crypto ETNs.
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