Wall Street ticks to more records, led by technology stocks

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks edged up to more records on Thursday as technology stocks kept rising and as Wall Street kept ignoring the shutdown of the U.S. government.

The S&P 500 added 0.1% to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 79 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.4%. Both also hit records.

Thursdays on Wall Street typically have investors reacting to the latest weekly tally of U.S. workers applying for unemployment benefits. But D.C.’s shutdown meant this week’s report on jobless claims has been delayed. An even more consequential report, Friday’s monthly tally of jobs created and destroyed across the economy, will likely also not arrive on schedule.

That increases uncertainty when much on Wall Street is riding on investors’ expectation that the job market is slowing by enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it leads to a recession.

“The Fed has been on record that they are very data dependent, and the lack of data from public sources is likely to be problematic,” said Brian Rehling, head of global fixed-income strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

So far, the U.S. stock market has looked past the delays of such data. Shutdowns of the U.S. government have tended not to hurt the economy or stock market much, and the thinking is that this one could be similar, even if President Donald Trump has threatened large-scale firings of federal workers this time around.

That left corporate announcements as the main drivers of trading Thursday.

Stocks in the chip and artificial-intelligence industries climbed after OpenAI announced partnerships with South Korean companies for Stargate, a $500 billion project aimed at building AI infrastructure.

Samsung Electronics rose 3.5% in Seoul, and SK Hynix jumped 9.9%.

The announcement also sent ripples around the world. On Wall Street, Advanced Micro Devices climbed 3.5%, and Broadcom gained 1.4%. Nvidia’s 0.9% rise was the strongest single force pushing the S&P 500 upward.

Excitement around AI and the massive spending underway because of it has been a major reason the U.S. stock market has hit record after record, along with hopes for easier interest rates. But AI stocks have become so dominant, and so much money has poured into the industry that worries are rising about a potential bubble that could eventually lead to disappointment for investors.

Occidental Petroleum fell 7.3% after it agreed to sell its chemical business, OxyChem, to Berkshire Hathaway for $9.7 billion in cash. It could be the final big purchase for Berkshire Hathaway with famed investor Warren Buffett as its CEO.

Fair Isaac jumped 18% to its best day in nearly three years after announcing a program that will streamline access to its FICO credit scores, potentially cutting out such big credit bureaus as TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

TransUnion’s stock tumbled 10.6%, while Equifax slid 8.5%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 4.15 points to 6,715.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 78.62 to 46,519.72, and the Nasdaq composite gained 88.89 to 22,844.05.

The stock of a third credit bureau, the United Kingdom’s Experian, fell 4.2% in London. It helped drag London’s FTSE 100 down by 0.2%, but indexes were much stronger across Europe and Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi leaped 2.7% for one of the world’s largest gains following the big jumps for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.08% from 4.12% late Wednesday.

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AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.