The Australian dollar remained steady, trading at US 65.15 cents.

On Wall Street, US stocks climbed after market superstar Nvidia and another round of companies said they’re making even fatter profits than expected.

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The S&P 500 pulled 0.5 per cent higher after flipping between gains and losses several times during the day. Banks, smaller companies and other areas of the stock market that tend to do best when the economy is strong helped lead the way, while bitcoin briefly broke above $US99,000. Crude oil, meanwhile, continued to rise.

The Dow Jones jumped 461 points, or 1.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite edged up by less than 0.1 per cent.

Nvidia rose just 0.5 per cent after beating analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue yet again, but it was still the strongest force pulling the S&P 500 upward. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that topped most analysts’ expectations due to voracious demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology.

Its stock initially sank in afterhours trading Wednesday following the release of the results. Some investors said the market might have been looking for Nvidia’s revenue forecast to surpass expectations by even more. But its stock recovered in premarket trading Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was another “flawless” profit report provided by Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, whom Ives calls “the Godfather of AI.”

The stock meandered through Thursday as well, dragging the S&P 500 and other indexes back and forth. How Nvidia’s stock performs has more impact than any other because it’s grown into Wall Street’s most valuable company at roughly $US3.6 trillion ($5.5 trillion).

The frenzy around AI is sweeping up other stocks, and Snowflake jumped 32.7 per cent after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, whose platform helps customers get a better view of all their silos of data and use AI, also reported stronger revenue growth than expected.

Nearly 90 per cent of the stocks in the S&P 500 ended up rising, and the gains were even bigger among smaller companies. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks jumped a market-leading 1.7 per cent.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, fell 4.7 per cent after US regulators asked a judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser.

In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the US Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favouring its own search engine. Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android but left the door open to it if the company’s oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.

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In the crypto market, bitcoin eclipsed $US99,000 for the first time before pulling back toward $US98,000, according to CoinDesk. It’s more than doubled so far this year, and its climb has accelerated since Election Day. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to make the country “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin.

Bitcoin got a further boost after Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Thursday he would step down in January.

In the oil market, a barrel of US crude rose 2 per cent to bring its gain for the week to 4.8 per cent. Brent crude climbed 1.8 per cent. Oil has been rising amid escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war.

In stock markets abroad, shares of India’s Adani Enterprises plunged 22.6 per cent Thursday after the US charged founder Gautam Adani in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.

AP

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