Dow Jones Today: Nasdaq, S&P 500 Drop as Oracle Results Drag AI Shares; Dow Ticks Higher

Bill Gates Has a Warning for AI Investors

52 minutes ago

One of America’s legendary tech founders has a warning for AI investors: They can’t all be winners.

“Not all of these valuations will end up going up. Some of them will go down,” Bill Gates, co-founder of tech giant Microsoft (MSFT), said of AI stocks in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. “It’s going to be hyper-competitive. A reasonable percentage of those companies won’t be worth that much.”

Microsoft is among the tech giants whose massive investments in artificial intelligence have fueled the AI bubble debate raging on Wall Street. The so-called hyperscalers—Microsoft, Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), and Oracle (ORCL)—are expected to spend $400 billion on infrastructure—much of it dedicated to training and running AI models—this year, and more than $500 billion next year.

Some investors worry the sheer size of those figures has encouraged speculation on Wall Street, causing some AI stocks to trade at eye-watering valuations.

Software firm Palantir (PLTR) has a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 400, one of the highest in the S&P 500. Shares of chip designers Broadcom (AVGO) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have soared this year on hopes they can take market share from AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA); those gains have nudged their PE ratios above 100, more than three times that of the S&P 500 as a whole.

Then there’s the cohort of unprofitable startups commanding lofty valuations in private markets. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, isn’t expected to turn a profit before the end of the decade. Yet the start up was valued at $500 billion in October, which would make it the 16th largest public company in America.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Tommy Bahama Parent Oxford Industries Stock Plummets on Slashed Profit Outlook

1 hr 9 min ago

Shares of Oxford Industries (OXM) sank 22% soon after the opening bell Thursday, a day after the Tommy Bahama and Lilly Pulitzer parent cut its full-year profit projection.

After the bell yesterday, Oxford Industries said it now sees fiscal 2025 adjusted earnings per share between $2.20 and $2.40 when it reported third-quarter results. Last quarter, it had guided for adjusted EPS between $2.80 and $3.20.

In addition, the Atlanta-based retailer trimmed its full-year net sales outlook to a range of $1.47 billion to $1.49 billion, down from $1.475 billion to $1.515 billion.

Oxford’s Q3 results narrowly topped Visible Alpha consensus estimates.

Including today’s sharp declines, shares of Oxford Industries are down about 60% this year.

Sheryl Sandberg Says ‘Old Pressures’ Aren’t Helping Women—Or Their Employers

1 hr 44 min ago

Climbing the corporate ladder is growing more daunting for women. 

Women are less interested in promotions than men for the first time in 11 years, according to annual worker and employer surveys released this week by McKinsey, a consulting firm. This “ambition gap” shows up when women receive less support than men, and fades when a workplace is more equitable, the report said. 

Women’s waning enthusiasm for navigating corporate America comes as fewer employers prioritize diversity and inclusion, and some cut resources for such efforts, McKinsey said.

“When women and men have sponsors and receive similar levels of support from managers and more senior colleagues, they are equally enthusiastic about getting promoted to the next level,” the report said.

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

Micron Stock Has Gained More Than 200% This Year. Why Experts See Additional Record Highs on the Horizon

2 hr 29 min ago

One of the hottest AI stocks appears to have more room to run.

Shares of Micron Technology (MU) have surged to all-time highs this week as analysts continue to raise their targets for the memory chip maker ahead of next week’s earnings report.

Citi analysts on Wednesday lifted their price target to $300 from $275, now double where their target for the stock was in early September. The analysts said the increasing demand for the advanced memory chips used to run artificial intelligence models should help bring in “large capital infusions” that help Micron and other memory chip makers boost their manufacturing capabilities to meet demand.

Micron shares rose more than 4% Wednesday to a record closing high of just below $264. The stock price has more than tripled since the start of the year.

Read the full article here.

–Aaron McDade

After December Cut, The Fed’s Next Move Is Far From Certain

3 hr 16 min ago

The Federal Reserve cut its key rate by a quarter-point Wednesday for the third time in as many meetings—but it’s far from certain that more cuts are on the way anytime soon.

Wednesday’s move brought the fed funds rate to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. That’s at the high end of the “neutral” range where Fed officials think the rate is neither turbocharging the economy with easy money nor slowing it down with high borrowing costs, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference following the policy committee’s decision.

“As we noted in our statement today, we’re well-positioned to determine the extent and timing of additional adjustments based on the incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks,” Powell said. “That new language points out that we’ll carefully evaluate that incoming data.”

Fed officials projected making just one further quarter-point rate cut next year. Economists said that outcome was likely, but that it could shift depending on the Fed’s new leadership next year and the incoming economic data.

“The Fed thinks its policy rate is back in the range of neutral and the growth outlook looks solid, but inflation is still too high,” Elyse Ausenbaugh, Head of Investment Strategy at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, wrote in a commentary. “Pausing cuts makes sense, but there could be renewed pressure and uncertainty in the new year.”

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Bitcoin’s Price Is Still Off Its Highs. Did The Fed’s Latest Interest-Rate Cut Help?

3 hr 35 min ago

Bitcoin got some of what it wanted from the Fed on Wednesday. But what’s next?

The price of bitcoin (BTCUSD) climbed toward $94,000 as the Federal Open Market Committee cut its target rate by a quarter percentage point, as widely expected, then handed back a few grand, perhaps a signal of disappointment that the outlook for future cuts wasn’t clearer. Still, the prospect of more accommodative policy ahead may be helping hold crypto off recent lows.

Analysts and investors have been recalibrating their expectations for crypto lately, with the digital assets in the doldrums since the top of October. Now, it seems, the Fed is in the driver’s seat with regard to what’s next for the world’s largest cryptocurrency, which as of today is little-changed for 2025 after a wild run.

Bitcoin “is a bit of a chameleon, because there will probably be a time when it acts like gold, but right now it acts a lot more like it’s sensitive to monetary policy and the business cycle,” Fundstrat Head of Research Tom Lee told CNBC on Wednesday. “Both are about to turn up.”

Standard Chartered, a UK-headquartered bank, cut its year-end bitcoin price target by half in a report published Tuesday—but it’s still bullish, even in the short-term.

It trimmed its year-end target for bitcoin to $100,000 by the end of the year, from $200,000, and its 2026 target to $150,000 from $300,000. The firm characterized bitcoin’s recent 36% drop from peaks as “normal,” but said that price action also pushed it to recalibrate its outlook.

Read the full article here.

–Crystal Kim

Eli Lilly Stock Rises After Next-Gen Obesity Drug Trial Results

3 hr 42 min ago

Eli Lilly (LLY) released late-stage trial results for its next-generation obesity drug. Investors appear to like what they heard.

Shares of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant rose 2.5% in premarket trading after it reported “positive topline results” from its Phase 3 trial evaluating “triple hormone receptor agonist” retatrutide, which is expected to follow Lilly’s blockbuster injection Zepbound and an upcoming pill for weight loss.

The trial found that “each dose of retatrutide (9 mg and 12 mg) met all primary and key secondary endpoints, delivering significant weight loss and improvements in pain and physical function at 68 weeks.” The drug’s higher dose helped obese patients with knee osteoarthritis lose an average of 28.7% of their body weight at 68 weeks.

“People with obesity and knee osteoarthritis often live with pain and restricted mobility, and may eventually require total joint replacement. We are encouraged by the results,” said Kenneth Custer, Ph.D., executive vice president and president, Lilly Cardiometabolic Health, who added that “with seven additional Phase 3 readouts expected in 2026, we believe retatrutide could become an important option for patients with significant weight loss needs and certain complications, including knee osteoarthritis.”

Eli Lilly shares entered Thursday having added more than a quarter of their value this year.

Oracle Stock Is Plunging Despite New Commitments From Nvidia and Meta. Here’s Why

4 hr 15 min ago

Oracle has some new deals with big AI names. That news wasn’t enough to keep its stock from plummeting late Wednesday after the company released its quarterly results.

The cloud infrastructure giant said Wednesday new agreements with AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta Platforms (META) helped drive its backlog to a record $523 billion. However, Oracle’s fiscal second-quarter revenue of $16.06 billion, while up 14% from the year-ago period, came in below analysts’ estimates, offsetting better-than-expected adjusted earnings of $2.26 per share.

Oracle (ORCL) shares were down 11% in recent after-hours trading.

Heading into Wednesday night’s results, Wall Street analysts warned Oracle would face a challenging setup, with investors likely to be watching closely for signs demand for Oracle’s AI offerings is broad-based.

The company’s shoutout to heavy AI spender Meta may not have soothed those concerns, and its commitments from Nvidia, which is a big supplier of Oracle’s chips, could underscore worries about circular deals.

Read the full article here.

–Kara Greenberg

Stock Futures Point Lower After Indexes Approach Records on Fed Rate Cut

4 hr 33 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed 0.1% lower.

S&P 500 futures declined 0.5%.

Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.8%.