Alphabet Plunges on Earnings Miss
Affected by weaker-than-expected corporate earnings and volatility in the artificial intelligence sector, all three major US stock indexes fell Thursday. Among them, the S&P 500 faced pressure to end a three-day winning streak, while the Nasdaq Composite posted the steepest decline. Google parent Alphabet plunged after third-quarter adjusted earnings per share and revenue both missed market expectations. The company reported free cash flow of negative 90.7 hundred million US dollars, while maintaining its full-year capital expenditure forecast at 1950 hundred million to 2050 hundred million US dollars. Before deadline, the stock fell 39.29 US dollars or 12.21%, dragging overall technology shares lower.
Microsoft, Caterpillar and NVIDIA Weaken
In its fiscal first-quarter report through the end of September, Microsoft initially beat analyst expectations surveyed by LSEG for revenue and profit on strong growth in its Azure cloud infrastructure business, rising at the open, but then gave up gains and turned lower, falling more than 1%. As Microsoft's capital expenditure commitment came in below expectations, suggesting infrastructure partners may take longer to deliver data center capacity, new cloud-concept stocks such as Nebius pulled back more than 2%. Industrial giant Caterpillar, also a Dow component, reported third-quarter revenue and profit beating expectations, but sales in its construction machinery business came in slightly below market estimates, causing its shares to pull back. Before deadline, it fell 56.28 US dollars or 7.89%.
US Stocks Fall, TAIEX Night Futures Move Lower
In addition, foreign media reported that US intelligence agencies recently learned through surveillance activities of highly concerning intelligence, namely that a senior Singapore data center executive who had close dealings with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has been officially identified as having Chinese spy status, suspected of spying for and collecting key intelligence for Beijing authorities. In response, NVIDIA said it was only normal business-related interactions with customers. Before deadline, NVIDIA fell 2.05 US dollars or 0.95%. Before deadline, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 211.59 points or 0.40%, the S&P 500 fell 31.32 points or 0.40%, the Nasdaq fell 368.20 points or 1.39%, and the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 171.08 points or 1.46%. Among benchmark US stocks, Apple rose 6.15 US dollars or 1.79%, and TSMC ADR fell 6.90 US dollars or 1.57%. All four major indexes moved lower, and TAIEX futures in the night session temporarily fell 86 points or 0.18% to 46483 points.