NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting around their records Thursday following the latest signals that the U.S. economy continues to hum.
The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading and flirting with its record level set early this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was adding 85 points, or 0.2%, to its own all-time high set the day before, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher, as of 9:37 a.m. Eastern time.
Nvidia and other companies in the chip industry were leading the way after global heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company credited strong demand related to smartphones and artificial intelligence. TSMC’s stock that trades in the United States jumped 8.2%.
The 2% rise for Nvidia was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500, and it was a sharp turnaround from earlier in the week when a warning from a major Dutch supplier to the chip industry, ASML, sent stocks sinking across the industry.
Treasury yields were also rising in the bond market following the latest encouraging reports on the U.S. economy. U.S. retailers made more in sales in September than in August, and underlying growth trends within the data were better than economists expected. The strength was “all the more impressive in the face of stretched household finances, particularly among lower-income shoppers, and pre-election jitters,” according to Gary Schlossberg, market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
A separate report, meanwhile, said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, a signal that layoffs nationwide are relatively low and aren’t damaging the job market.
Such data bolster the hope that has sent U.S. stocks to records: The economy may make a perfect escape from the worst inflation in generations, one that doesn’t end with a recession that many investors thought looked nearly inevitable. And with the Federal Reserve now cutting interest rates to help the economy keep humming, the expectation among optimists is that stocks can rise even further.
Lower interest rates ease the brakes off the economy, boost prices for investments and make borrowing bills less costly for households and businesses. And rates are heading lower around the world, with only a couple exceptions.
The European Central Bank on Thursday cut its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point. That helped send stock indexes higher by 1.7% in France and 1.1% in Germany. They halted a run of losses that started the day in Asian stock markets, where Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.7% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1%.
On Wall Street, insurer Travelers was another winner and rose 6.2% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Higher income made from its investments and elsewhere helped cover greater losses due to Hurricane Helene and severe wind and hail storms in multiple states.
It helped offset a 15.9% drop for Elevance Health, which reported weaker profit for the latest quarter than expected. The The Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer also cut its forecast for profit for the full year, saying it was dealing with a “timing mismatch” between Medicaid rates and higher claims from customers.
CSX fell 4.9% after falling short of analysts’ profit expectations for the latest quarter. The railroad also expects only modest volume growth the rest of the year as the Southeast rebuilds after two major hurricanes.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.07% from 4.02%. The two-year yield, which moves more closely with expectations for action by the Fed, rose to from 3.94%.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
FILE - American flags, left, hang from the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
The New York Stock Exchange is shown on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
A passerby moves past an electronic stock board showing Japan's stock prices outside a securities firm in Tokyo, on Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)
FILE - People walk past Hong Kong's stock exchange building as the market closed with a massive fall of more than nine percent in the benchmark Hang Seng Index, on Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday his country has intelligence information that 10,000 troops from North Korea are being prepared to join Russian forces fighting against his country, warning that a third nation wading into the hostilities would turn the conflict into a “world war.”
Zelenskyy did not go into further details about the claim that came a day after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in Seoul that Washington and its allies are alarmed by North Korea's military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine but couldn’t confirm Ukrainian claims that North Korean soldiers were sent to fight for Moscow.
“We know about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea that they are preparing to send (to) fight against us,” Zelenskyy said, calling any North Korean involvement "the first step to a world war.”
The Ukrainian leader’s comments raised the stakes for his Western allies as he met with European Union leaders and then NATO defense ministers to discuss his “ victory plan ” to end the country’s devastating war with Russia.
“If we start now and follow the victory plan, we can end this war no later than next year,” he told the EU leaders.
He told reporters the plan aims “to strengthen Ukraine" and pave the way for a diplomatic solution to end the conflict on Europe's eastern flank.
“This plan doesn’t depend on Russian will, only on the will of our partners,” he said before addressing leaders at an EU summit.
Zelenskyy was later shuttling across Brussels to meet with NATO defense ministers. The EU is a key supporter of Ukraine, a candidate member of the 27-nation bloc, as it fights Russia's invasion that began more than 2 1/2 years ago.
Zelenskyy outlined the five-point plan to Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday without disclosing confidential elements that have been presented in private to key allies, including the United States.
Major points of the plan include an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and permission to use Western-supplied longer-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia, steps that have been met with reluctance by Kyiv’s allies so far.
“If we get this sign that we will be in NATO, we will feel that we are not alone,” Zelenskyy said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, called Zelenskyy's plan “more than frightening” in a Facebook post and said he would urge major EU powers France and Germany to “begin negotiations with the Russians as soon as possible, in order to find a way out of this situation.”
The Institute for the Study of War in Washington said that Putin is seeking to draw out the war and he believes "that Russian forces can outlast Western support for Ukraine and collapse Ukrainian resistance by winning a war of attrition.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday that Kyiv can rest “absolutely assured that 32 allies are united in making sure that collectively, we will do whatever is needed to make sure that Ukraine can prevail, that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will not get his way.”
Rutte reiterated that Ukraine’s place is among NATO’s ranks, but he would not say when it might join. Zelenskyy insists that a membership invitation is central to his “victory plan” and would provide his country with the ultimate security guarantee to protect it from Russia.
“Ukraine will be a member of NATO in the future,” Rutte said. “The question is exactly about the ‘when.’ I cannot answer that now.”
However, Rutte said, Putin must understand that “we are in this, if necessary, for the long haul. And obviously we want to be in a place where Zelenskyy and Ukraine, from a position of strength, is able to start talks with Russia.”
Zelenskyy told EU leaders that his troops must keep battling Russian forces in Ukraine "while also bringing the war back into Russia so that Russians can feel what war is like and begin to hate Putin for it.”
Zelenskyy said he needs to "move some partners forward” on the issue. “And I think only with the unity in EU we can move and can move not only EU leaders, we can move other leaders.”
A draft copy of EU summit conclusions — a text that will likely be tweaked before publication at the end of Thursday's meeting — reaffirms the bloc's “unwavering commitment to providing continued political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes and as intensely as needed. Russia must not prevail.”
Thursday's talks in Brussels come as Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold off better-equipped Russian forces, especially in the eastern Donetsk region where they are gradually being pushed back. Kyiv is surviving with Western help, but Ukraine says it is coming too slowly.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda criticized slow Western decision-making over Ukraine and said it “would be a great mistake to think that our hesitance is the best way to de-escalation.”
At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 NATO members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership.
But for now, NATO is in a holding pattern. Its biggest and most powerful member, the United States, is facing a presidential election. European allies expect little movement on Ukraine until a new president takes office in January.
Beyond that, the United States and European heavyweight Germany remain deeply concerned about being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia, and they lead a group of countries that oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO until the conflict ends.
Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press reporter Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and European Council President Charles Michel arrive to an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
European Union leaders pose for a group photo with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, front row sixth left, during an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and European Council President Charles Michel talk to journalists as they arrive to an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and European Council President Charles Michel arrive to an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukrainian servicemen of Khartia brigade fire D-30 Howitzer towards Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
Ukrainian servicemen of Khartia brigade fire D-30 Howitzer towards Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
In this photo provided by the Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine on Oct. 16, 2024, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to parliamentarians at Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine via AP)
FILE - In this image provided by the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, is watched by Rich Hansen, the commander's representative for the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, while signing military ordnance in Scranton, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Office of the Ukrainian Presidency via AP, File)
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy heads to EU, NATO to seek backing for his 'victory plan'
FILE - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a joint press conference during the Crimea Platform summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy heads to EU, NATO to seek backing for his 'victory plan'
