Financial Markets                      08/27 15:23

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- Technology stocks led Wall Street after Nvidia, Salesforce 
and others reported fatter profits for the spring than expected. The S&P 500 
rose 0.7% Thursday and pulled closer to its record set earlier this month. The 
Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.6%. 
Nvidia was the strongest force lifting the market and more than offset drops 
for the majority of the stocks within the S&P 500. The chip giant not only blew 
past analysts' expectations for profit but also gave a better-than-expected 
forecast for revenue growth. That helped calm worries dogging the broader AI 
industry. Treasury yields ticked higher.

   THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.

   NEW YORK (AP) -- Technology stocks are leading Wall Street on Thursday after 
Nvidia, Salesforce and others reported even fatter profits for the spring than 
analysts expected.

   The S&P 500 added 0.7% and pulled closer to its all-time high set earlier 
this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 160 points, or 0.3%, as of 
2:01 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% higher.

   Nvidia was the strongest force pulling the market higher, even though more 
stocks fell within the S&P 500 than rose. The chip giant climbed 8.9% after 
once again delivering much stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter 
than analysts expected. More importantly for Wall Street, it also gave 
forecasts for upcoming revenue growth that topped analysts' estimates, 
suggesting demand remains strong for chips to power artificial-intelligence 
projects.

   "AI has reached its inflection point," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said. "It's 
doing useful work. Its tokens are productive and profitable."

   That helped calm some of the worries that have built around AI stocks 
generally, which have been under pressure recently. After rocketing higher for 
years in the frenzy around AI, stocks in the industry are confronting 
skepticism that they shot too high and that booming demand for AI chips may 
fade if the AI revolution does not produce as much profit as promised.

   Another big tech company, Salesforce, jumped 21.6% after it said that AI 
helped it deliver one of its best quarters in history. It reported stronger 
profit than analysts expected, and CEO Marc Benioff said it's "seeing 
incredible demand for our AI and data products" and that it's "turning AI into 
customer success at unprecedented scale."

   Salesforce, which helps companies manage their customers' data, also raised 
its forecast for revenue over the full year and announced an expanded 
partnership to pair Anthropic's Claude chatbot with its platform. It's notable 
because Salesforce's stock struggled earlier on worries that competitors 
powered by AI could ultimately steal away customers from Salesforce and other 
software companies. Salesforce's stock is potentially heading for its best day 
in six years.

   Elsewhere, though, trends were more mixed across big U.S. companies.

   HP fell 4.4% even though it topped analysts' expectations for profit and 
spring in the latest quarter. Analysts pointed to worries about its sales of 
personal computers, as well as how higher prices for computer memory and other 
commodities are pressuring its profit margins.

   Best Buy and some other retailers sank amid continued worries that U.S. 
shoppers could be stretched because of high inflation and discouragement about 
the economy. Best Buy fell 4.4% even though it topped analysts' expectations 
for both profit and revenue in the latest quarter.

   One potential winner from high inflation could be dollar stores, which could 
see higher-income households become new customers as they look for less 
expensive places to shop.

   Dollar General rose 4% after reporting a stronger profit for the latest 
quarter than analysts expected. But rival Dollar Tree sank 3.9% despite blowing 
past profit expectations. More attention may have been on its forecasted range 
for an important underlying measure of revenue, whose midpoint fell short of 
analysts' expectations.

   In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady following a 
report suggesting the U.S. job market remains solid. Fewer U.S. workers applied 
for unemployment benefits last week, an indication that layoffs could be 
remaining low.

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.68% from 4.66% late Wednesday.

   Yields have been largely climbing through the summer on worries about high 
inflation, the U.S. government's gargantuan and growing debt and other factors. 
They got so high that the U.S. Treasury Department made a surprise announcement 
last week to intervene in the bond market, though analysts say its effect could 
be limited.

   The next big event for the bond market will be a speech coming Friday from 
the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh. He has been adamant about 
giving financial markets fewer clues about what the Fed will do in the future 
with interest rates to control inflation. But the pressure is on him to give 
clearer guidance.

   One wild card for inflation recently has been oil prices, which have been 
swinging with uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow oil tankers 
to freely exit the Persian Gulf again. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, 
the international standard, rose 1.3% Thursday to $88.10.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia. Stocks 
jumped 1.5% in Seoul and 1.1% in Shanghai but fell 1.7% in Paris.

   ___

   AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this 
report.

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