US stocks rose on Thursday as the AI trade continued to power a push for fresh records amid new buzz around OpenAI (OPAI.PVT). Meanwhile, investors kept an eye on developments in Washington, weighing the chances of a lengthy US government shutdown.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose 0.2%. All three major averages posted new records.

Stocks rose one day after the S&P 500 closed above 6,700 for the first time. A wave of good news from the AI sector lifted chip stocks worldwide, with Nvidia (NVDA) rising to a record high. AMD (AMD) and SK Hynix (000660.KS, HXSCL) also gained.

OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) valuation soared to $500 billion after an employee share sale, boosting tech rally hopes despite fears of an AI bubble. The ChatGPT maker ousted Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) as the most valuable startup in the world.

Markets have so far been unperturbed by the US government shutdown, which looks set to drag on at least until the end of the week. President Trump is amping up his rhetoric against Democrats, threatening to fire "thousands" of federal workers and canceling billions of dollars in federal funding to blue states.

Trump said he is meeting on Thursday with OMB Director Russ Vought, who has been leading White House strategy in the shutdown, to discuss which "Democrat Agencies" should be cut.

In any case, Friday's scheduled release of the September jobs report is all but certain to be delayed. That has Wall Street looking elsewhere during the federal data blackout, as Fed policymakers have indicated cracks in the labor market will loom large in their October rate decision.

Private data from the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released Thursday found hiring plans at their lowest level since 2009, even as layoffs fell. The report provided more evidence of the softening "low hire, low fire" labor market after Wednesday's ADP report. Investors remain near-unanimous on bets for a cut at the Fed's next meeting.

Elsewhere in corporates, Tesla (TSLA) shares took a hit despite a record sales quarter as investors turned focus to future performance without the federal EV tax credit.

US stocks climbed to all-time highs as enthusiasm over OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) $500 billion valuation helped tech equities move higher.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose 0.4% to rise to a record high, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose just above the flatline to post its own all-time record close.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) also rose 0.1%, setting a new high.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) moved above $120,000 per token as momentum across cryptocurrencies grew.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rose above $121,000 on Thursday as momentum across cryptocurrencies gained steam.

The world's largest token rose 3%, to extend 2025's rally to 29%.

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

Looking under the hood of General Motors' (GM) strong third quarter US sales report, there's a familiar growth driver: trucks.

GM said gas-powered vehicles — including its pickup trucks and full-size SUVs — drove the gains. Both categories are poised to lead the industry by the end of the year by total volume, GM said.

One of the brands in the GM portfolio driving those truck gains is GMC — GM’s premium truck division.

GMC and Chevy products pushed GM’s crossovers and SUVs to reach a new record in Q3, with the GMC Terrain and Buick Envista all having their best-ever third quarter sales, GM said. GM projects that GMC is on pace for its best year ever, topping the record 614,117 units sold last year.

Read more here.

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) rose 2% on Thursday to gain for a second session in a row as investors eyed \\"Uptober\\" as a seasonally favorable period for cryptocurrencies.

October has historically been bitcoin's strongest month, while the world's largest cryptocurrency has also been strong in the fourth quarter.

Gold (GC=F) took a breather on Thursday after a monstrous rally this year.

The precious metal has been trading at record highs amid a US government shutdown.

Aakash Doshi, head of gold strategy at State Street Investment Management, told Yahoo Finance that he expects the precious metal to reach $4,000 per ounce in the fourth quarter.

\\"Earlier this week, we already highlighted that $4,000 an ounce is not only a question of if but when, and we do think that that's plausible this month or certainly in the fourth quarter, assigning a 75% probability of breaking above $4,000 an ounce,\\" Doshi said.

\\"Where we go forward from there, there could be some modest retrenchment. November and December are negative seasonals for gold ETFs in particular,\\" he added.

Gold futures are up roughly 48% year to date.

Oil prices fell again on Thursday, marking a fourth straight day of declines amid worries of oversupply.

West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) futures fell roughly 2% to hover near $60 per barrel. Brent crude (BZ=F) also fell to hover near $64 per barrel.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) are considering a plan to increase output by as much as 500,000 barrels per day in November, which would be three times the agreed-upon increase for October, as Saudi Arabia aims to reclaim market share.

Yahoo Finance's Claire Boston reports:

Mortgage rates moved slightly higher for a second straight week, though they remain near the lowest levels of the year.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.34% this week through Wednesday, compared with 6.3% a week earlier, according to Freddie Mac data. The average 15-year mortgage rate was 5.55%, up from 5.49%.

Mortgage rates have gradually moved higher since the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate last month, reflecting investor uncertainty around the speed and aggressiveness of future rate cuts.

The 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX), which mortgage rates closely track, has drifted slightly lower in recent days, although its path down has been choppy. Near midday on Thursday, the 10-year yield stood near 4.1%.

Read more here.

Yahoo Finance's Emma Ockerman reports:

Hiring plans among US employers for the year through September were at their lowest since 2009, according to a new report, underscoring the labor market’s stagnant state.

The weaker planned headcount was largely fueled by a steep drop in seasonal hiring announcements, the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report Thursday.

Read more here.

Fermi (FRMI) stock swung back and forth on Thursday after rising over 54% in its first day of trading on Wednesday.

Shares of the data center REIT rose 9% in premarket trading before dipping 3% lower. At last check, the stock dived

The real estate trust co-founded by former US Energy Secretary Rick Perry aims to build hyperscale data centers and power grids to meet the power demands of artificial intelligence. Its development-stage campus, known as the \\"President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus,\\" spans more than 5,000 acres of land in the Texas Panhandle.

\\"The biggest reason that we went public is we have a global supply chain, and I think it makes it easier for our critical vendors to know who we are if we're a public company,\\" Fermi America Co-Founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer told Yahoo Finance's Market Domination. \\"The No. 1 race on the planet right now is for gas generation and the components associated with electron generation, and we want our customers ... or our vendors to feel good about us.\\"

“When you think about our customer group, it’s relatively small, but when you think about the collective market cap and cash flows associated with those companies, it’s staggering,” Fermi America CEO Toby Neugebauer says. pic.twitter.com/ydWAg6l7kJ

— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) October 1, 2025

Excitement over OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) $500 billion valuation sparked a rally in AI stocks on Thursday, after the company surpassed Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) as the most valuable startup.

Shares of AI chipmakers Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (AVGO), and AMD (AMD) gained about 1.5%, 2%, and 3%, respectively, in early trading.

Nvidia stock hit an intraday all-time high of $190 on Thursday morning, as optimism around AI chip demand eased investors' concerns about Nvidia's $100 billion investment in OpenAI.

It's been a news-filled week for OpenAI, which released its new video generation AI model, Sora, and announced a partnership with Samsung (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) to increase the supply of advanced memory chips. Current and former OpenAI employees also sold about $6.6 billion of stock to investors, which is what boosted the ChatGPT maker's valuation to an estimated $500 billion.

Tesla (TSLA) reported third quarter global deliveries that blew past estimates, initially lifting the stock about 3% at the open. However, shares of the electric vehicle maker gave way in early trading, falling by 1% as of 9:45 a.m. ET.

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

Tesla said Q3 deliveries came in at 497,099, easily topping Bloomberg consensus estimates of around 439,800, and the 462,890 units delivered a year ago. Tesla said Q3's total was a new quarterly record for the company.

Tesla also said global production came in at 447,450, and the company also deployed a record 12.5 GWh of energy storage products.

Tesla’s strong delivery numbers come as the company faced persistent issues in Europe, where new competition and Musk’s right-wing politics have likely alienated buyers.

Tesla's huge Q3 also comes as the Republican-led US government phased out the federal $7,500 EV tax credit, so the big question is how far sales will fall in post-tax credit sales environment.

Read more here.

US stocks opened higher on Thursday, as the buzz around artificial intelligence lifted tech stocks, even as the US government entered its second day of shutdown. OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) $500 billion valuation helped spur that excitement for AI.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led gains, advancing 0.5% at the open. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.2%, building on a record high that saw the major index climb above 6,700 for the first time on Wednesday. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) nudged below the flat line.

Meanwhile, Treasury yields held steady after private payrolls data released Wednesday raised investors bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in October. The 10-year yield (^TNX) rose by 1 basis point to 4.11%.

As the federal government enters day two of a shutdown, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned the gridlock could slow US economic growth.

“This isn’t the way to have a discussion, shutting down the government and lowering the GDP,” Bessent told CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “We could see a hit to the GDP, a hit to growth, and a hit to working America.”

The US's gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 3.8% in the third quarter, growing for the second straight quarter after growth contracted in the first quarter.

On Wednesday, US senators failed to advance a plan to fund the government after another round of votes. But as Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul notes, the White House also appears poised to use the shutdown as an opportunity to expand Trump's powers to potentially fire government workers or cut programs.

\\"A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,\\" Trump said ahead of the stoppage. \\"We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want, and they'd be Democrat things.\\"

Layoffs fell in September, but companies' hiring plans stood at their lowest level since the Great Recession era, according to data from the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released Thursday.

The report is part of a slew of private data in higher focus, with government data delayed or postponed during the federal government shutdown.

Reuters reports:

Challenger, Gray & Christmas said planned job cuts dropped 37% month-on-month to 54,064 in September. Employers have so far this year announced 946,426 job cuts, the highest year-to-date since 2020.

Hiring plans so far this year have totaled 204,939, the lowest year-to-date since 2009 when the economy was just emerging from the Great Recession.

\\"Right now, we're dealing with a stagnating labor market, cost increases and a transformative new technology,\\" said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas. \\"With rate cuts on the way, we may see some stabilizing in the fourth quarter, but other factors could keep employers planning layoffs or holding off hiring.\\"

Read more here.

Fair Isaac (FICO), a data analytics company that provides measures of consumer risk, said on Thursday that it would begin selling FICO scores directly to mortgage lenders, circumventing the three major credit bureaus.

FICO stock soared nearly 19% in premarket trading on Thursday, while shares of credit bureaus TransUnion (TRU) and Equifax (EFX) fell 12% each. Experian (EXPN.L) stock, which trades on the London exchange, also dropped 5%.

FICO will sell scores to lenders for a royalty fee of $4.95 per score, undercutting the fees from resellers by 50% on average, the company said. FICO-score mortgage loans that close will also incur a fee of $33.

The move comes as the company faces competition from its lone rival, VantageScore Solutions. In July, government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dealt a blow to FICO by giving lenders a green light to use VantageScore to buy a home.

Since July 8, excluding today's premarket move, FICO shares have declined by around 20%. If today's upswing holds, the stock will have regained nearly all its losses since then.

Warren Buffett announced his biggest deal in years on Thursday with Berkshire Hathaway's $9.7 billion acquisition of Occidental Petroleum's (OXY) chemical division.

AP reports:

Occidental Petroleum's shares rose more than 1% before the bell on Thursday.

The deal for OxyChem could be Buffett’s last big deal before he hands over the CEO title to Vice Chairman Greg Abel in January. Warren Buffett plans to remain chairman at Berkshire (BRK-B, BRK-A) and will continue to be involved in deciding how to spend the conglomerate’s more than $344 billion cash.

Berkshire’s cash pile has been steadily growing for years because Buffett has been unable to find any major acquisitions at attractive prices since completing the $11.6 billion acquisition of Alleghany Insurance in 2022. Prices for big acquisitions have been driven higher in recent years by the entry of more hedge funds into the market.

OxyChem makes things like chlorine for water treatment, vinyl chloride for plastics and calcium chloride that’s used to treat icy roads along with an assortment of other chemicals. It will fit nicely within Berkshire alongside Lubrizol, which Buffett bought in 2011 for $9 billion. But Berkshire generally doesn’t consolidate its subsidiaries, so OxyChem will likely continue operating independently.

Read more here.

Despite Amazon's (AMZN) cloud-computing business helping it's shares rise for almost two decades, the eCommerce giant is now facing increasing pressure from rivals Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL), impacting its stock appeal.

Bloomberg News reports:

“Q2 provided the first warning signal that AWS is falling behind Azure (AZRH) when it comes to winning AI work flows, but they are falling behind Oracle and CoreWeave (CRWV) to an even greater extent,” said Clare Pleydell-Bouverie, co-manager of the Liontrust Global Innovation Team in London, which manages roughly $1.3 billion.

The proliferation of artificial intelligence has led to an explosion of demand for cloud hyperscalers, where Amazon Web Services has the biggest market share. It’s followed by Microsoft’s Azure and Alphabet Inc.’s (GOOG, GOOGL) Google Cloud Platform, with Oracle’s huge growth suggesting there’s a fourth major player on the field. CoreWeave Inc. is also garnering investor attention.

The scope of Amazon’s challenge becomes clear in its dwindling stock market valuation. At roughly 25 times expected earnings over the next 12 months compared with 27 times for the Nasdaq 100 Index, Amazon is close to its biggest discount to the tech-heavy benchmark on record. Oracle, on the other hand, is trading at 40 times estimated earnings, near its highest P/E ratio since the dot-com era, while Microsoft trades at nearly 32 times, above its 10-year average.

Alphabet shares are trading for 22 times forward earnings, a modest premium to the company’s long-term average. Although that’s less than Amazon’s multiple, the gap used to be much wider.

Read more here.

Please note: Some US government economic data will not be released today due to the federal shutdown.

Economic data: Challenger job cuts, year-on-year (September); Initial jobless claims, (week ended Sept. 27); Factory orders (August); Durable goods orders (August final reading)

Earnings calendar: No notable earnings.

Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed overnight and early this morning:

OpenAI completes share sale at record $500 billion valuation

Meta unveils the inevitable turn to AI advertising

What happens to Social Security payments during a shutdown?

How Trump could use the shutdown to boost his agenda

Trump vows to confront China over not buying US soybeans

Goldman: There's room for gold to rally even higher than forecast

Fermi stock surges as $15B IPO reveals hunger for AI

Amazon's stock loses its shine as cloud rivalry heats up

EU plans to double tariffs on steel imports to 50%

OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) has completed a deal to help employees sell shares in the company at a $500 billion valuation, propelling the ChatGPT owner past Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) to become the world’s largest startup.

Bloomberg reports:

Current and former OpenAI employees sold about $6.6 billion of stock to investors including Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp. (SFTBY, 9984.T), Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and T. Rowe Price (TROW), a person familiar with the transaction said.

That boosted the US company’s price tag well past its previous $300 billion level during a SoftBank-led financing round earlier this year.

That rapid rise underscores the investment frenzy surrounding the leaders of a technology with the potential to transform industries and economies.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI is one of several companies including Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) now leading a global push to build data centers and develop artificial intelligence services, an undertaking that’s expected to cost trillions of dollars.

Though it has yet to turn a profit, the US startup is helping fuel that infrastructure boom by inking mega-sized deals with the likes of Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and SK Hynix Inc. (000660.KS, HXSCL)

Read more here.

Here's a look at some of the top stocks trending in premarket trading:

Equifax Inc. (EFX) stock slid 10% in premarket trading on Thursday after Fair Issac announced it would license its credit scores directly to mortgage resellers, raising concerns among major credit unions.

Alibaba (BABA) stock rose 2% before the bell on Thursday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) raised its price target for the eCommerce giant.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (005930.KS) gained 3% and SK hynix Inc. (000660.KS) shares rose 9% on Thursday following a deal with OpenAI to support the ChatGPT maker's expansive Stargate artificial intelligence data centre project.