At 12:09 ET (17:09 GMT), the benchmark S&P 500 index was down 0.5% to 6,876.76 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite shed 0.7% to 22,720.55 points, and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 1.1% to 48,942.12 points, News.az reports, citing BBC.
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The main averages on Wall Street ended mostly lower on Thursday, with the S&P 500 losing 0.5%, and the Nasdaq declining 1.2%. The Dow closed a smidge higher.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), the most valuable company in the world, was the biggest weight on Wall Street on Thursday, sliding over 5% despite logging bumper quarterly earnings.
Questions over more shareholder returns, especially after a sharp increase in the company’s cash balance, weighed on the stock, as did some profit-taking after a strong run-up ahead of its earnings.
Netflix declines to raise Warner Bros offer
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) was in the spotlight, soaring around 10% after the streaming giant said it will not raise its offer for Warner Bros Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD).
This was after Warner determined an upgraded, $31 a share offer from Paramount Skydance (NASDAQ:PSKY) was the superior proposal. Paramount stock jumped 20%, while Warner was down nearly 2%.
Netflix said that with the price required to match Paramount’s latest offer, the deal was “no longer financially attractive.”
Still, the streaming giant is set to receive $2.8 billion as a termination fee from Paramount if Warner picks the latter. Warner shareholders are set to vote on the Netflix deal on March 20.
Netflix declining to further pursue Warner marks a potential end to one of the largest high-profile bidding wars in the media industry. The streaming giant and Paramount had aggressively pursued Warner, with its studio assets and host of popular franchises being viewed as highly attractive.
Elsewhere, Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) advanced about 22% after the PC maker delivered record quarterly results on the back of surging AI server demand.
Block (NYSE:XYZ) stock soared 14% after the payments firm said it will slash cut over 4,000 jobs, nearly half its workforce, as part of an overhaul to embed artificial intelligence across its operations.
January producer inflation comes in hot
On the economic calendar, January’s producer price index ticked up 0.5% M/M and 2.9% Y/Y, both higher than the consensus figures of 0.3% and 2.6%, respectively.
Meanwhile, core PPI, which excludes energy and food prices, rose 0.8% M/M and 3.6% Y/Y, compared to estimates of 0.3% and 3.0%.
“The Producer Price Index (PPI) doesn’t typically get the attention that the CPI or PCE inflation readings get, but this morning the PPI was higher than expected across the board and that could upset markets,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, said.
“For the past month the market has been worried about AI disruption and its impact on the labor market, so inflation hasn’t been top of mind, but this morning’s inflation readings could give the Fed another reason to be more patient with rate cuts and wait until the second half of the year before making any changes,” Zaccarelli added.
JPMorgan sees the latest PPI data slightly firming its estimate for the January personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index – widely seen as the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.
“Today’s PPI report nudged up our core PCE deflator tracking estimate for January to 0.42% m/m, from 0.39% after the January CPI report,” JPMorgan’s Michael Hanson said.
“While there may be some Fed officials willing to write off this recent firming as a combination of residual seasonality and temporary tariff effects, we suspect it will reinforce the caution and continued concerns about sticky above-target inflation that a majority of FOMC participants expressed in the most recent minutes,” Hanson added.
OpenAI’s record-breaking $110 billion raise
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed OpenAI on Friday announced a $110 billion investment round, the largest ever for a private tech company.
The round includes $30 billion from SoftBank (TYO:9984), $30 billion from Nvidia, and $50 billion from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). The investment gives OpenAI a pre-money valuation of $730 billion.
“AI demand is surging across consumers, developers, and businesses. Meeting that demand and providing everyone access to our products requires three things: compute, distribution, and capital,” OpenAI said in a statement.
“We’ve also signed a strategic partnership with Amazon and secured next generation inference compute with NVIDIA. Additional financial investors are expected to join as the round progresses,” the company added.
Crude ends the week higher
Oil prices rose even after the United States and Iran extended talks over Tehran’s nuclear program, easing concerns about potential hostilities that could disrupt supply.
Brent futures climbed 2.4% to $72.52 a barrel, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 2.4% to $66.78 a barrel.
The talks between the two countries over Iran’s nuclear ambitions concluded on Thursday with no clear deal being agreed.
But they plan to resume negotiations with technical-level discussions scheduled to take place next week in Vienna, Omani foreign minister Badr Albusaidi said in a post on X after the meetings in Geneva.
