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.



Apple, Google Send New Round of Cyber Threat Notifications to Users Around World

The Apple logo is seen in this illustration taken September 24, 2025. (Reuters)
The Apple logo is seen in this illustration taken September 24, 2025. (Reuters)
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Apple, Google Send New Round of Cyber Threat Notifications to Users Around World

The Apple logo is seen in this illustration taken September 24, 2025. (Reuters)
The Apple logo is seen in this illustration taken September 24, 2025. (Reuters)

Apple and Google have sent a new round of cyber threat notifications to users around the world, the companies said this week, announcing their latest effort to insulate customers against surveillance threats.

Apple and the Alphabet-owned Google are two of several tech companies that regularly issue warnings to users when they determine they may have been targeted by state-backed hackers.

Apple said the warnings were issued on Dec. 2 but gave few further details about the alleged hacking activity and did not address questions about the number of users targeted or say who was thought to be conducting the surveillance.

Apple said that "to date we have notified users in over 150 countries in total."

Apple's statement follows Google's Dec. 3 announcement that it was warning all known users targeted using Intellexa spyware, which it said spanned "several hundred accounts across various countries, including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Angola, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and Tajikistan."

Google said in its announcement that Intellexa, a cyber intelligence company that is sanctioned by the US government, was "evading restrictions and thriving."

Executives tied to Intellexa did not immediately return messages.

Previous waves of warnings have triggered headlines and prompted investigations by government bodies, including the European Union, whose senior officials have previously been targeted using spyware.

Threat notifications impose costs on cyber spies by alerting victims, said John Scott-Railton, a researcher with the Canadian digital watchdog group Citizen Lab.

He said they were "also often the first step in a string of investigations and discoveries that can lead to real accountability around spyware abuses."


AI Bubble to Be Short-lived, Rebound Stronger, NTT DATA Chief Says

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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AI Bubble to Be Short-lived, Rebound Stronger, NTT DATA Chief Says

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

A potential artificial intelligence bubble will deflate faster than past tech cycles but give way to an even stronger rebound as corporate adoption catches up with infrastructure spending, the head of Japanese IT company NTT DATA Inc. said.

Despite worries around supply chains, the direction of travel is clear, CEO Abhijit Dubey said in an interview with the Reuters Global Markets Forum.

"There is absolutely no doubt that in the medium- to long-term, AI is a massive secular trend," he said.

"Over the next 12 months, I think we're going to have a bit of a normalization ... It'll be a short-lived bubble, and (AI) will come out of it stronger."

With demand for compute still running ahead of supply, "supply chains are almost spoken for" over the next two to three years, he said. Pricing power is already tilting toward chipmakers and hyperscalers, mirroring their stretched valuations in public markets, he added.

AI has triggered the biggest technological shake-up since the advent of the internet, fueling trillions of dollars of investment and eye-watering equity gains. But it has caused shortages of memory chips, drawn regulatory scrutiny, and created growing unease over the future of work.

Dubey, who is also the firm's chief AI officer, said his company has begun rethinking recruitment strategies as AI reshapes labor markets.

"There will clearly be an impact ... Over a five- to 25-year horizon, there will likely be dislocation," he said. However, he added that NTT DATA continues to hire across locations.

Speakers at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York discussed how AI may upend work and job growth.

AI startup Writer Inc.'s CEO May Habib said customers are focused on slowing headcount growth.

"You close a customer, you get on the phone with the CEO to kick off the project, and it's like, 'Great, how soon can I whack 30% of my team?'," she said.

Still, a PwC survey of the global workforce released in November suggests the reality of generative AI usage has yet to match boardroom expectations.

Daily use of GenAI remains "significantly lower" than widely touted by executives, PwC said, even as workers with AI skills commanded an average wage premium of 56% — more than double last year's figure.

PwC also flagged a widening skills gap, with about half of non-managers reporting access to training resources, compared with roughly three-quarters of senior executives.


EU Launches Antitrust Probe into Meta over Use of AI in WhatsApp

FILE - Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco on March 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco on March 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
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EU Launches Antitrust Probe into Meta over Use of AI in WhatsApp

FILE - Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco on March 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco on March 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Brussels has opened a new antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in WhatsApp, the European Commission said on Thursday, reflecting rising scrutiny of Big Tech's use of generative AI.

The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, marks the latest action by European regulators against large technology firms as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.

The European Commission opened the investigation into "Meta's new policy regarding AI providers' access to WhatsApp" after the California-based company integrated its Meta AI system into the messaging service earlier this year.

A WhatsApp spokesperson said that "the claims are baseless", adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms "puts a strain on our systems that they were not designed to support".

"Even still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems."

Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp's interface since March 2025 across European markets.

Italy's antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp. The probe was expanded in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform.

The FT, citing officials, said that the EU probe will be conducted under traditional antitrust rules rather than the EU's Digital Markets Act, the bloc's landmark legislation currently used to scrutinize Amazon and Microsoft's cloud services for potential curbs.