Palantir Technologies helped lead the way, rising 7.5% after reporting bigger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The forecast for 61% revenue growth this year also exceeded analyst expectations, as CEO Alex Karp crowed that his company is unique and that “these numbers prove it.”The better-than-expected performance helped allay some of the market’s concerns that AI customers might not get as big a return on their investments as they expected. Such concerns have weighed on AI stocks after they shot to records due to the frenzy underway in AI technology.
The boosted optimism helped South Korea’s Kospi rise 6.8% for its best day since the wild days of the COVID crash and recovery in early 2020. Just a day earlier, the Kospi was down 5.3% from its record worst day in nearly a decade. The Kospi is home to many technology stocks, including Samsung Electronics, which rose 11.4%.
The action was once again even stronger on the metal markets. Gold prices rose 6.3% to $4,947.80 an ounce in its latest swing since the stunning rally suddenly halted last week.
The price of silver, which has been rising despite even wilder moves, rose 13.1%. Gold and silver had been rising for more than a year as investors sought safer places to put their money amid concerns about everything from tariffs to a weaker U.S. dollar to massive debt burdens for governments around the world. In the past month in particular, their prices rose, and at one point the price of gold had roughly doubled in twelve months.
But those rallies suddenly ended last week, with gold prices falling from nearly $5,600 to less than $4,500 on Monday. Silver plummeted 31.4% on Friday alone.
Many traders say expectations that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to combat inflation initially turned the momentum, although some disagree. Most agree that simple gravity then took over.
After gold and silver prices rose so quickly and so much, it was inevitable that they would pull back at some point, especially since so many investors were using gold as a way to bet on continued weakness in the U.S. dollar.
“This move underlined how extensive the anti-USD positioning had become,” said volatility strategists at Barclays.
On Wall Street, PepsiCo rose 2.8% after the snack and beverage giant’s last-quarter profit and sales beat analysts’ expectations, though it also said it would cut prices on Lay’s, Doritos and other snacks this year to try to win back inflation-weary customers.
That helped offset an 18.2% decline for PayPal, which reported weaker results for its latest quarter than analysts expected. It also appointed a new CEO after saying that “the pace of change and execution” over the past two years was “not in line” with the expectations of the board or directors.
Pfizer fell 3.6%, although it reported stronger earnings for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The pharmaceutical company gave an expected profit margin for 2026, with the midpoint being below analyst expectations.
Walt Disney Co. fell 1.2% after it said Josh D’Amaro, head of the company’s parks operations, will become its next CEO in March.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond remained at 4.29%, where it was late Monday.
In foreign stock markets, indices in Asia bounced back after sharp losses the day before. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 3.9%, while shares rose 1.3% in Shanghai and 0.2% in Hong Kong.
Indexes were weaker in Europe, where France’s CAC 40 fell 0.6%.
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