HONG KONG — Early trading on Wall Street was mixed and oil prices fell again, one day after stocks rallied to recover most of the big losses from last week.
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.1% before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%. Nasdaq futures dipped 0.3%.
Oil prices continue to decline, with Brent crude falling below $91 per barrel, the lowest level in three months. The declines came after U.S. President Donald Trump said that the war in Iran “militarily is effectively over,” a week after American voters, angered by skyrocketing costs, handed both chambers of Congress to Democrats in midterm elections.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 2.2%, or $2.02, to US$90.55 a barrel. U.S. benchmark crude oil slid 1.8%, or $1.65, to $84.94 per barrel.
Nvidia shares were off less than 1% before the bell. Shares fell 4.3% on Monday after the AI chip company said it’s investigating after its CEO, Jensen Huang, acknowledged an intimate relationship with a business executive who, according to The New York Times, U.S. intelligence determined was gathering information for China.
Nvidia’s board said it has “no reason to believe” that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised but its inquiry would examine all available information. China has rejected the allegations.
Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic filed papers with regulators Tuesday seeking a $1.3 trillion valuation ahead of its IPO, expected later this month.
Anthropic’s quarterly revenue swelled to $17 billion but it still posted a net loss for the latest three months, the artificial intelligence giant said in an updated IPO filing.
Last week, the San Francisco company behind the Claude chatbot said its quarterly revenue swelled to $17 billion though it still posted a loss for the last three-month period.
Anthropic said it has committed to spend $895.4 billion on AI computing and infrastructure like data centers, including $70 billion that’s due to be spent in the next 12 months.
Global demand for AI chips remains robust with AI chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reporting after the market closed that its October revenue was nearly six-fold that of a year earlier.
In Asian trading, Taiwan’s Taiex jumped 2.5%.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 closed 2.9% higher at 60,459.58.
Shares in OpenAI investor SoftBank Group jumped 13.9% ahead of the company’s earnings release. Its share price had fallen to its lowest level in a year on Monday.
SoftBank Group reported a $7 billion loss for the three months through September as worries about investments in artificial intelligence hurt the Japanese technology company’s bottom line.
Computer chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron surged 6.1% and testing equipment maker Advantest gained 4.6%.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 4.4% to 5,239.13. Samsung Electronics gained 4.7% and SK Hynix climbed 6.7%.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng rose 0.6% to 24,584.81, while the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% higher to 3,663.72.
China’s exports in October climbed 35.2% from a year earlier, while imports grew 41.6%, according to customs data released on Tuesday.
That has put the country on track for another record for the year since the trade surplus for 2026 has already surpassed $1 trillion.
At midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 1.2%, as did the CAC 40 in Paris. Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.5%.
Investors are waiting for the U.S. consumer price index report for October, which comes out later Tuesday. Data is expected to show inflation rose 3.9%, up from 3.7% in September, which many analysts expect will force the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate in the coming months.
By Elaine Lai And Matt Ott
