S&P 500 steadies as Western Digital and Sandisk tumble despite strong AI forecasts
US stocks have opened mostly higher as investors looked to shares of companies in energy, consumer staples and healthcare sectors.
The S&P 500 is flat in volatile trading, with tech stocks down as Western Digital and Sandisk’s strong forecasts failed to impress, countering gains across other sectors.
Data storage company Western Digital lost 18.5 per cent and memory chip maker Sandisk dropped 11.3 per cent in early trading, after having shot up 200 per cent and 400 per cent this year.
Both companies forecast quarterly revenue above expectations, betting on strong AI-driven demand.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“There are just incredible expectations and chips have done so well this year through June so there’s just some digestion going on in the market,” said Hank Smith, director and head of investment strategy at Haverford Trust.
The sector was broadly under pressure, with shares of Intel and AMD lower and the Philadelphia chips index down 1.5 per cent.
Another point of weakness was software stocks, with Atlassian, Salesforce, Adobe and Zscaler all down sharply following earnings reports from a few companies in the sector.
AppLovin dropped 17.4 per cent as the marketing platform missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue while Datadog lost 16.7 per cent after the cloud security firm said it expects revenue growth to slow in the third quarter.
The rest of the market, meanwhile, was mostly higher, with nine of the 11 S&P sectors trading up.
Energy, consumer staples and healthcare were leading gains.
Parker-Hannifin rose 8.5 per cent as the motion and control tech firm forecast full-year profit above estimates while lithium miner Albemarle rose 6.7 per cent after beating quarterly profit estimates.
Megacap stocks were mostly higher, with Microsoft and Amazon up about 1.0 per cent each.
SpaceX rose 2.0 per cent ahead of the space conglomerate’s first post-IPO share lockup expiry.
The broader AI-linked group of stocks showed signs of cooling from a rally.
Strong earnings from tech leaders this reporting season have restored investor confidence that AI investments were being monetised, which helped the benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow reclaim record highs earlier this week.
The Nasdaq is about 3.0 per cent away from an all-time high, bouncing off last week’s lows, in which the index came close to confirming a correction.
In early trading on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 44.19 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 54,393.31, the S&P 500 gained 5.82 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 7,729.37 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 14.59 points, or 0.05 per cent, to 26,350.26.
Brent crude prices traded in a tight range near $US80 a barrel as markets were keen on any signs of a deal between Iran and the United States.
A proposed deal between Iran and Oman would give Iranian officials control over ships entering the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, sources told Reuters.
Meanwhile, data showed the number of people in the US filing claims for unemployment benefits increased slightly last week.
This comes ahead of non-farm payrolls figures for July due on Friday.
Friday’s jobs report could be key in assessing the Federal Reserve’s future interest rate path as data points have garnered more attention since new chairman Kevin Warsh has dialled back any forward guidance.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.07-to-1 ratio on the NYSE while declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.39-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 25 new 52-week highs and two new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 72 new highs and 30 new lows.
