Nvidia and Big Tech Rally to Help Wall Street Recover Much of Last Week's Loss

A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
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Nvidia and Big Tech Rally to Help Wall Street Recover Much of Last Week's Loss

A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)
A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. (Reuters)

Big Tech and other superstars of the US stock market are rallying on Monday, as Wall Street recovers much of its loss from last week.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.2% to claw back more than two-thirds of its first weekly loss in the last four. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 183 points, or 0.4%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.9% higher.

Nvidia was by far the strongest force pushing the market upward and rose 4%. It and other winners in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology had been at the center of last week’s drop. Critics say their stock prices shot too high and too fast in the mania around AI, drawing comparisons to the 2000 dot-com bubble that ultimately burst.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes chips for Nvidia and other companies, saw its stock that trades in United States rise 3.1% after saying its revenue climbed nearly 17% in October from a year earlier. While such growth is strong compared with other companies, it’s a slowdown from TSMC’s earlier performance.

Another AI darling, Palantir Technologies, jumped 8% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500.

The gains for tech helped offset losses across much of the rest of the market, as the majority of stocks within the S&P 500 index sank.

Health insurers fell as uncertainty remains about whether Washington will extend expiring health care tax credits, a sticking point in the disagreement on Capitol Hill that's created the longest-ever shutdown for the US government.

That's even though the Senate took the first steps on Sunday to end the shutdown.

President Donald Trump suggested in a social media post over the weekend — with few details — that the subsidies being sent to the “money sucking” insurance companies should instead be sent directly to people so they can buy their own health insurance.

Humana fell 2.6%, and Cigna slipped 0.7%, The AP news reported.

The effects of the government's shutdown have become more apparent following the cancellations of thousands of flights over the weekend. Towers are facing shortages as some air traffic controllers — unpaid for weeks — have stopped showing up for work.

Besides the pain at airports, the US government’s shutdown has also delayed many important reports on the economy. A resumption could upset financial markets if the released logjam shows data that dashes traders’ expectations for coming cuts to interest rates.

The wide expectation is that the Federal Reserve will continue to cut its main interest rate in hopes of shoring up what has been a slowing job market. Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can give the economy a boost while also pushing prices for investments upwards.

But the Fed has said it may have to halt its cuts if inflation worsens because lower interest rates can give inflation more fuel.

Without updates from the US government on jobs and the economy, traders have been trawling profit reports from companies for clues about how things are going.

Tyson Foods, which sells chicken and other meat, climbed 2.1% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It benefited from increases in prices of 11% to 17% for its beef and pork.

Roughly four out of every five companies in the S&P 500 have also been reporting stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. Companies usually top analysts’ profit expectations each quarter, but the pressure was high this time around because they needed to justify the big moves upward their stock prices have made since April.

Delivering bigger profits is one of the easier ways they can quiet criticism that their stock prices have become too expensive.

Companies have also been giving generally strong forecasts for upcoming results, according to Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian. That has analysts' overall expectations for earnings in 2026 nearly all the way back to where they were before Trump shocked the economy and financial markets with his “Liberation Day” announcement of worldwide tariffs.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rallied across much of Europe and Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 3% for one of the bigger gains. Chip company SK Hynix, which is cooperating with Nvidia on artificial intelligence, leaped 4.5%. Its bigger rival, Samsung Electronics, climbed 2.8%.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.10% from 4.11% late Friday.



Nvidia, Joining Big Tech Deal Spree, to License Groq Technology, Hire Executives

The Nvidia logo is seen on a graphic card package in this illustration created on August 19, 2025. (Reuters)
The Nvidia logo is seen on a graphic card package in this illustration created on August 19, 2025. (Reuters)
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Nvidia, Joining Big Tech Deal Spree, to License Groq Technology, Hire Executives

The Nvidia logo is seen on a graphic card package in this illustration created on August 19, 2025. (Reuters)
The Nvidia logo is seen on a graphic card package in this illustration created on August 19, 2025. (Reuters)

Nvidia has agreed to license chip technology from startup Groq and hire away its CEO, a veteran of Alphabet's Google, Groq said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The deal follows a familiar pattern in recent years where the world's biggest technology firms pay large sums in deals with promising startups to take their technology and talent but stop short of formally acquiring the target.

Groq specializes in what is known as inference, where artificial intelligence models that have already been trained respond to requests from users. While Nvidia dominates the market for training AI models, it faces much more competition in inference, where traditional rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices have aimed ‌to challenge it ‌as well as startups such as Groq and Cerebras Systems.

Nvidia ‌has ⁠agreed to a "non-exclusive" ‌license to Groq's technology, Groq said. It said its founder Jonathan Ross, who helped Google start its AI chip program, as well as Groq President Sunny Madra and other members of its engineering team, will join Nvidia.

A person close to Nvidia confirmed the licensing agreement.

Groq did not disclose financial details of the deal. CNBC reported that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Groq for $20 billion in cash, but neither Nvidia nor Groq commented on the report. Groq said in its blog post that it will continue to ⁠operate as an independent company with Simon Edwards as CEO and that its cloud business will continue operating.

In similar recent deals, Microsoft's ‌top AI executive came through a $650 million deal with a startup ‍that was billed as a licensing fee, and ‍Meta spent $15 billion to hire Scale AI's CEO without acquiring the entire firm. Amazon hired ‍away founders from Adept AI, and Nvidia did a similar deal this year. The deals have faced scrutiny by regulators, though none has yet been unwound.

"Antitrust would seem to be the primary risk here, though structuring the deal as a non-exclusive license may keep the fiction of competition alive (even as Groq’s leadership and, we would presume, technical talent move over to Nvidia)," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday after Groq's announcement. And Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's "relationship with ⁠the Trump administration appears among the strongest of the key US tech companies."

Groq more than doubled its valuation to $6.9 billion from $2.8 billion in August last year, following a $750 million funding round in September.

Groq is one of a number of upstarts that do not use external high-bandwidth memory chips, freeing them from the memory crunch affecting the global chip industry. The approach, which uses a form of on-chip memory called SRAM, helps speed up interactions with chatbots and other AI models but also limits the size of the model that can be served.

Groq's primary rival in the approach is Cerebras Systems, which Reuters this month reported plans to go public as soon as next year. Groq and Cerebras have signed large deals in the Middle East.

Nvidia's Huang spent much of his biggest keynote speech of 2025 arguing that ‌Nvidia would be able to maintain its lead as AI markets shift from training to inference.


Italy Watchdog Orders Meta to Halt WhatsApp Terms Barring Rival AI Chatbots

The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters)
The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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Italy Watchdog Orders Meta to Halt WhatsApp Terms Barring Rival AI Chatbots

The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters)
The logo of Meta is seen at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Italy's antitrust authority (AGCM) on Wednesday ordered Meta Platforms to suspend contractual terms ​that could shut rival AI chatbots out of WhatsApp, as it investigates the US tech group for suspected abuse of a dominant position.

A spokesperson for Meta called the decision "fundamentally flawed," and said the emergence of AI chatbots "put a strain on our systems that ‌they were ‌not designed to support".

"We ‌will ⁠appeal," ​the ‌spokesperson added.

The move is the latest in a string by European regulators against Big Tech firms, as the EU seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.

Meta's conduct appeared capable of restricting "output, market ⁠access or technical development in the AI chatbot services market", ‌potentially harming consumers, AGCM ‍said.

In July, the ‍Italian regulator opened the investigation into Meta over ‍the suspected abuse of a dominant position related to WhatsApp. It widened the probe in November to cover updated terms for the messaging app's business ​platform.

"These contractual conditions completely exclude Meta AI's competitors in the AI chatbot services ⁠market from the WhatsApp platform," the watchdog said.

EU antitrust regulators launched a parallel investigation into Meta last month over the same allegations.

Europe's tough stance - a marked contrast to more lenient US regulation - has sparked industry pushback, particularly by US tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of US President Donald Trump.

The Italian watchdog said it was coordinating with the European ‌Commission to ensure Meta's conduct was addressed "in the most effective manner".


Amazon Says Blocked 1,800 North Koreans from Applying for Jobs

Amazon logo (Reuters)
Amazon logo (Reuters)
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Amazon Says Blocked 1,800 North Koreans from Applying for Jobs

Amazon logo (Reuters)
Amazon logo (Reuters)

US tech giant Amazon said it has blocked over 1,800 North Koreans from joining the company, as Pyongyang sends large numbers of IT workers overseas to earn and launder funds.

In a post on LinkedIn, Amazon's Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt said last week that North Korean workers had been "attempting to secure remote IT jobs with companies worldwide, particularly in the US".

He said the firm had seen nearly a one-third rise in applications by North Koreans in the past year, reported AFP.

The North Koreans typically use "laptop farms" -- a computer in the United States operated remotely from outside the country, he said.

He warned the problem wasn't specific to Amazon and "is likely happening at scale across the industry".

Tell-tale signs of North Korean workers, Schmidt said, included wrongly formatted phone numbers and dodgy academic credentials.

In July, a woman in Arizona was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for running a laptop farm helping North Korean IT workers secure remote jobs at more than 300 US companies.

The scheme generated more than $17 million in revenue for her and North Korea, officials said.

Last year, Seoul's intelligence agency warned that North Korean operatives had used LinkedIn to pose as recruiters and approach South Koreans working at defense firms to obtain information on their technologies.

"North Korea is actively training cyber personnel and infiltrating key locations worldwide," Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

"Given Amazon's business nature, the motive seems largely economic, with a high likelihood that the operation was planned to steal financial assets," he added.

North Korea's cyber-warfare program dates back to at least the mid-1990s.

It has since grown into a 6,000-strong cyber unit known as Bureau 121, which operates from several countries, according to a 2020 US military report.

In November, Washington announced sanctions on eight individuals accused of being "state-sponsored hackers", whose illicit operations were conducted "to fund the regime's nuclear weapons program" by stealing and laundering money.

The US Department of the Treasury has accused North Korea-affiliated cybercriminals of stealing over $3 billion over the past three years, primarily in cryptocurrency.