Dow rises as tech falls ahead of Apple earnings

(AWP Alliance News) - Technology stocks fell in New York on Monday ahead of key Apple and Palantir earnings, as markets brace for another busy week of financial reports.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 213.67 points, 0.4%, at 51,983.98. The S&P 500 fell 38.67 points, 0.5%, to 7,541.40. The Nasdaq Composite ended down 272.68 points, 1.1%, at 25,164.32.

"The stock market's longer-term bullish narrative may have taken some hits in recent weeks, but it's still intact," said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade. "The challenge has been short-term momentum - stringing together more than a few days without being disrupted by surging oil prices, concerns about AI spending, inflation, or geopolitics."

Investors are looking to third quarter reports from Advanced Micro Devices and Keurig Dr Pepper on Tuesday, followed by Costco, KLA and GlobalFoundries and Uber on Wednesday. Airbnb and Monster Beverage report on Thursday.

Marvell Technology shares sank 13% after it announced an all-share takeover of California-based firm optical and photonic products maker Lumentum.

The the deal gives Lumentum an implied enterprise value of USD115 billion. Marvell said the deal implies USD1,132 per share valuation for Lumentum, a 24% premium to its share price on Wednesday last week, the day before Bloomberg reported a tie-up was near.

"The AI infrastructure industry is at an inflection point. Rapidly growing bandwidth requirements and the physical limitations of copper-based connectivity are accelerating the transition toward optical technologies. As AI infrastructure scales to increasingly complex architectures, particularly scale-up and scale-in, the industry is shifting from discrete, modular components toward highly integrated optical solutions that require much closer co-design of electrical and optical technologies to deliver greater bandwidth, performance and energy efficiency," Marvell said.

Lumentum fell 19% following the annoucement. It also reported a sharp rise in earnings for its financial first quarter. Net profit in the quarter to September 26 amounted to USD360.3 million, jumping from USD4.2 million a year prior. Net revenue soared to USD1.26 billion from USD533.8 million.

Oracle shares declined 8.8% on Monday after it announced plans to sell USD10 billion in stock and USD10 billion in bonds, Last week, the company said it is committed to limiting additional capital raises through 2030 to USD20 billion, excluding refinancing of existing debt, split between USD10 billion in equity and USD10 billion in gross debt.

Nvidia fell 1.3%, AMD lost 7.5% and Broadcom lost 1.2%.

Meta and Apple declined 1.3% and 1.8%, respectively. Last week, Amazon rose 2.2%, re-gaining ground after a disappointing third quarter report drove shares lower last week.

Bringing the Dow Jones higher, Sherwin-Williams and Home Depot gained 5.9% and 3.6%, respectively.

A barrel of Brent fetched USD104.09 late Monday, down from USD117.55 on Friday. West Texas Intermediate fell to USD96.02 from USD103.37.

US President Donald Trump on Monday said a deal to end the eight-month long war between the US and Iran "could happen". Meanwhile, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran "will try to resolve the problem with dialogue".

On Monday evening, Qatari mediators traveled to Tehran for talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on a potential US-Iran deal.

Gold rose to USD3,946.28 an ounce from USD3,876.25.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to 4.91% from 4.92% late Thursday. The 30-year yield was at 5.29%, down from 5.30%.

Against the dollar, the euro was at USD1.1192, up from USD1.1167 on Friday. Sterling rose to USD1.3409 from USD1.3395. Against the yen, the dollar was at JPY157.94, up from JPY157.54.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 closed up 0.3% in London. The CAC 40 ended up 1.0% in Paris. The DAX 40 in Frankfurt rose 0.6%.

In China, the Shanghai Composite Index ended up 1.1%. The Hang Seng rose 0.4% in Hong Kong. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 0.3%. The S&P/ASX 200 ended down 0.6% in Sydney.

Tuesday's corporate calendar has earnings from AMD, Pfizer and Saudi Arabia Oil Co.

The global economic diary has US vehicle sales data and the September job openings and labour turnover survey.

Tuesday marks the final day of voting in the key US midterm election, in which Democrats are likely to take back the US House of Representatives from US President Donald Trump's Republicans. There is a strong chance that the US Senate also 'flips blue'.

By Aidan Lane, Alliance News reporter

Comments and questions to newsroom [at] alliancenews.com