US stocks inched up slightly on Thursday as investors paused to assess the optimism around AI and interest-rate cuts that has buoyed markets amid the government shutdown.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose around 0.1% after another record close for the broad benchmark on Wednesday as Wall Street returned to rally mode. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) also ticked more than 0.1% higher, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) traded just below the flatline.

Meanwhile, the torrid rally in gold (GC=F) took a pause amid signs of profit-taking.

The mood is muted as the ongoing federal shutdown puts paid to scheduled data releases, including the jobless claims update due Thursday. That has put the focus more firmly on coming earnings, watched for insight into the economy's health and to test high-running hopes for an AI boom.

PepsiCo (PEP) eked out quarterly profit and revenue beats, ushering in the third-quarter earnings season, which kicks off in earnest with big bank reports next week. Delta Air Lines (DAL) results are also on Thursday's docket.

Investors will also listen out for what Chair Jerome Powell has to say at the Federal Reserve's bank conference later, after minutes from its the Fed's September policy meeting out Wednesday boosted spirits. The minutes confirmed that most officials agree that at least two more rate cuts are likely this year.

Shares of UiPath (PATH) rose another 9% just after the opening bell on Thursday after climbing 5% on Wednesday. The stock is up 33% over the past five days.

UiPath develops robotic automation software, and the company recently announced its move into agentic AI automation in partnership with OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Nvidia (NVDA), which are seen as the two major leaders in artificial intelligence.

UiPath has been just one of several stocks that have been propelled higher by OpenAI's dealmaking. Stocks from Figma (FIG) to Expedia (EXPE) have seen a lift in prices after receiving shoutouts from OpenAI, as optimism around AI continues to fuel markets — and bubble concerns.

US stocks were broadly steady at the open on Thursday.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) inched up more than 0.1% after another record close for the index on Wednesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added nearly 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) traded flat.

The muted open comes as the US enters its ninth day of a government shutdown, putting on pause the release of key federal data that would factor into the Federal Reserve's path to interest rate cuts. Investors are also eyeing sentiment around the AI trade, weighing bullish sentiment among many on Wall Street against concerns over a bubble.

Costco (COST) stock rose 1.5% in Thursday's premarket session after the wholesaler reported an increase in sales in September and early October.

Sales increased 8% to $26.58 billion in the five weeks ending Oct. 5, the company said. US comparable sales rose 5.1%, Canada sales increased 6.3%, and other international sales grew 8.5%.

Digitally-enabled sales, which were previously called e-commerce comparable sales, rose 26.1%. Costco updated the metric to include all sales initiated through a digital device.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has warned that US stocks face a bigger risk of a sharp drop than widely expected, as investors debate the odds of an AI bubble.

Asked whether he sees a crash or correction coming, Dimon told the BBC: \\"I am far more worried about that than others.\\"

\\"I would give it a higher probability than I think is probably priced in the market and by others,\\" he said in an interview broadcast on Thursday. \\"So if the markets price in 10%, I would price in — I would say it's more like 30%.\\"

Dimon said the timing was \\"impossible to figure out\\" but could come in as soon as six months or as long as two years.

He pointed to the level of uncertainty in markets, with geopolitics, fiscal spending, and the remilitarization of the world among the key factors. \\"All these things cause a lot of issues that we don't know ... the answer to,\\" he said.

Tesla (TSLA) stock fell 2% before the bell on Thursday following news that US auto safety regulators have opened a probe into Tesla over incidents involving its vehicles running red lights and violating other traffic laws while using the system Full Self-Driving.

Bloomberg News reports:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it’s aware of 58 examples, including instances in which vehicles drove in the wrong direction on a road. The so-called preliminary evaluation involves an estimated 2.9 million vehicles, according to a filing posted on the agency’s website.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The probe broadens the scrutiny of Tesla’s driver-assistance technology and adds to other investigations over the automaker’s doors and Autopilot system.

The FSD system has been central to Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s vision to fully automate driving. Currently, vehicle operators are required to constantly supervise when the FSD system is in use. Musk has predicted that drivers in certain states in the near future will no longer need to pay attention when the system is engaged.

Read more here.

Nvidia (NVDA) stock climbed nearly 2% early Thursday morning amid a nod from Wall Street and positive industry signals.

Cantor analyst C.J. Muse raised his price target on Nvidia to $300 a share from $240 — a new call high on Wall Street — citing what he sees as growing AI demand.

\\"We are still in the early innings of a multi-trillion AI Infrastructure build-out with just the Hyperscalers providing significant line-of-sight into hundreds of billions of demand for the next handful of years,\\" he wrote.

Muse's view highlights the bull side of the AI bubble debate, which sees Big Tech as justifiably rushing to build data centers to meet unprecedented AI demand.

\\"Thus, this is not a bubble, and we are still in the early innings of this investment cycle,\\" Muse wrote.

Meanwhile, bears question whether demand is as strong as those companies say and point to concerns over circularity in the AI market.

In other Nvidia news, the US granted approval for exports of billions of dollars' worth of the AI giant's chips to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg reported. The move follows the announcement of a large AI infrastructure project called Stargate UAE during President Trump's visit to the country earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Nvidia's contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) posted third quarter revenue that topped expectations.

The country’s largest banks are navigating a delicate balancing act in President Trump's Washington, reports Yahoo Finance's David Hollerith.

He writes:

CEOs for some of the biggest US lenders — including JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), and Wells Fargo (WFC) — are competing for a leading role in a lucrative public offering for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a competition that has involved Oval Office appearances with the president.

At the same time, Trump has called out some of these same Wall Street bosses over \\"debanking.\\" Some are now facing increasing scrutiny from their regulators over whether they denied or refused services to conservative customers. Their legal and regulatory affairs teams are currently combing through old records for any account closures.

\\"There are a lot of areas where we're playing offense,\\" said Greg Baer, CEO of the Bank Policy Institute, an industry trade group. \\"There's some areas where we're playing defense. It makes for a very complicated battlefield, that's for sure.\\" ...

The Trump administration has made things more complicated for banks at the same time.

For one, it has provided regulatory relief to the crypto industry, which is emerging as an upstart competitor to banks within the financial world. Some crypto companies are now seeking banking licenses — a sign they intend to push deeper onto banks' turf.

Bank lobbyists are pushing back. They're seeking language to bar non-bank crypto platforms from offering interest payments on customer stablecoin balances in a forthcoming crypto market structure bill, arguing that doling out interest on stablecoins creates less-regulated \\"pseudo-banks.\\"

Read more here.

*Data with an asterisk is provided by the federal government and will not be published while the government is shut down.

Economic data: Initial jobless claims (week ended Oct. 4)*; Continuing claims (week ended Sept. 27)*; Wholesale trade sales (August)*; Wholesale inventories (August)*

Earnings calendar: PepsiCo (PEP), Delta Air Lines (DAL), Levi Strauss (LEVI), VinFast Auto (VFS), Applied Digital Corporation (APLD)

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

Big banks are walking a political tightrope in Trump's Washington

The flip side of gold's massive year

Delta earnings beat amid comeback from tariff woes

PepsiCo posts modest beat in Q3 profit, sales

Musk's Tesla deal will pay him billions even if he misses most goals

China widens rare-earth curbs ahead of Trump-Xi meeting

Trump to undergo physical exam Friday as health questions linger

TSMC posts forecast-beating Q3 revenue surge on AI boom

Gold holds near record as traders weigh Gaza deal

PepsiCo (PEP) beat Wall Street projections on both the top and bottom line in its third-quarter results before the bell on Thursday, but its US snacking business continues to see turbulence.

The drinks and convenience foods giant's stock nudged up slightly in premarket after the report.

Yahoo Finance's Brooke DiPalma reports:

Revenue came in at $23.94 billion, slightly beating Wall Street's expectations of $23.85 billion, per Bloomberg consensus data. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.29, beating the expectations of $2.27.

In North America, its beverage business offset an ongoing slowdown in its food business. Revenue for beverages for the quarter grew 2%.

As the snacking slowdown continues in the US, its food business remains under pressure. Food volume fell 3% as it \\"continues to work towards improving its performance trajectory with a high sense of urgency.\\"...

Meanwhile, activist pressure is building in the background. In September, activist investor Elliott Management disclosed a $4 billion stake in the company, calling for a turnaround.

Read more here.

Delta Air Lines (DAL) posted strong third quarter results before the bell, citing a pickup in business that is expected to flow on through the end of the year.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told Yahoo Finance that the airline is on track for its best fourth quarter ever as premium and business travelers drive gains.

Shares in Delta climbed over 5% in premarket after the results release.

Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

For the quarter, Delta posted adjusted revenue of $15.197 billion against estimates for $15.08 billion, per Bloomberg consensus, and up 4.1% compared to a year ago. Delta’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at $1.71, versus the $1.56 expected. Adjusted operating income came in at $1.7 billion, with an operating margin of 11.2%, down 1.7% from a year ago.

“As you may recall, in the earlier part of the year we had a challenge in our industry following geopolitical events, tariff announcements, all of which had some negative impact on overall consumer confidence — we saw some of our revenue start to slow down, particularly corporate revenues. I’m pleased to say that in the third quarter, things picked right back up again, and we're on a track that we had hoped to be at this point in the year,\\" Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Bastian said \\"significant improvement” in its revenue outlook led Delta to project full-year adjusted EPS of approximately $6, in the upper half of its prior guidance ($5.25 to $6.25) and above analyst estimates of $5.80. Delta reinstated its guidance after the second quarter, following what it called tariff certainty in light of nascent trade deals.

Read more here.

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

MP Materials (MP) stock rose almost 5% before the bell on Thursday after analysts at BMO reinstated coverage of the rare earths company. It also followed news that China has introduced new curbs on its rare earth exports. MP Materials recently announced a substantial government investment and a multi-year magnet supply agreement with Apple (AAPL).

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX) shares rose 3% in premarket trading following a positive call from Wall Street. Citi analysts upgraded the shares to Buy from Hold and maintained their price target at $48 a share. “Citi expects copper to rally to $12,000/ton in [first-half 2026],” wrote Hacking.

Wolfspeed (WOLF) shares rose 10% in premarket trading on Thursday. The chipmaker recently exited Chapter 11 protection last month.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM, 2330.TW) posted a 30% rise in third-quarter revenue on Thursday, topping Wall Street estimates.

The jump in sales at TSMC came as Big Tech companies continue to pile into multibillion-dollar bets on AI. The world's biggest contract chipmaker is the go-to partner for AI accelerator designers such as Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD), as well as a partner to Apple (AAPL).

Reuters reports:

Revenue for July-September came in at T$989.92 billion ($32.47 billion), according to Reuters calculations, compared with T$759.69 billion in the year ago period.

The latest result handily topped an LSEG SmartEstimate of T$973.26 billion drawn from 22 analysts, and was in the mid-point of guidance of $31.8 billion to $33 billion issued by TSMC in July in its last earnings call. TSMC only gives guidance in U.S. dollars. ...

The company, whose customers include Nvidia and Apple, has been a major beneficiary of advances in AI, which has more than offset the tapering off of pandemic-led demand for chips used in consumer electronics like tablets.

Read more here.

Nvidia (NVDA) stock rose 1% before the bell on Thursday following the news that the has approved billions of dollars of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates. The licences mark the first permits for Nvidia AI chip sales to the Gulf nation since President Trump took office.

Bloomberg News reports:

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security recently issued the Nvidia export licenses under the terms of a bilateral AI agreement hashed out in May, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity so they could discuss a sensitive issue.

This is a tangible sign of progress on an agreement announced nearly five months ago, centered on a massive five-gigawatt data center in the Gulf nation’s capital that counts OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) as an anchor tenant. That accord has been the source of significant consternation in Washington, where some officials in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill have questioned the wisdom of building such a large site outside the US, especially in a place where Beijing has developed significant business and economic ties.

Securing the permits is a top priority for the UAE, where some officials have grown frustrated with what they see as a slow pace of US approvals. AI is among the top priorities for the Gulf nation, which is spending massively on infrastructure at home and overseas.

Underpinning the AI deal is an Emirati promise to invest a whopping $1.4 trillion on American soil over the next ten years, a pledge the Gulf nation has not broken down into specific projects. The US, meanwhile, planned to approve up to 500,000 advanced American AI chips annually, with a fifth slated for Abu Dhabi AI juggernaut G42.

Read more here.

Gold (GC=F) pulled back after hitting the record mark of $4,000, doubling in value over two years, leading to a number of investors pulling gains out of the asset. The pullback showed that the precious metal is no longer being traded solely as a haven asset.

Bloomberg reports:

Bullion declined as much as 0.7% in early Asia trading on Thursday to around $4,015 an ounce, after closing 1.4% higher in the previous session. Technical indicators show gold’s been trading in overbought territory for the past month, likely leading to some profit-taking by investors following a scorching four-day run.

Meanwhile, some of gold’s haven appeal waned as US President Donald Trump said a peace deal in the Middle East was “very close,” after officials from Israel and Hamas were cautiously positive about the prospect that talks underway in Egypt would bring an end to the two-year war in Gaza.

Gold remains more than 50% higher this year, boosted by a plethora of uncertainties over global trade, the Federal Reserve’s independence and US fiscal stability. Heightened geopolitical tensions have also boosted demand for haven assets this year, while central banks have continued to buy bullion at an elevated pace.

Read more here.