Trading on Wall Street mixed early; chip stocks lifted by OpenAI deal with South Korean tech firms

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Trading on Wall Street was mixed early Thursday despite a shutdown of the U.S. government that threatened to drag on indefinitely.

Futures for S&P 500 were up 0.2% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 0.1%. Futures for the Nasdaq, home to most of the biggest U.S. technology companies, jumped 0.5% on news of a partnership between South Korean tech firms and OpenAI that's expected to boost demand for computer chips.

Late Wednesday, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced an agreement with OpenAI to supply its Stargate data hubs with memory chips.

“We expect export growth to remain resilient, led by higher chip prices, which will likely continue to offset the tariff impact on non-chip sectors such as autos,” the Nomura Group said in a commentary.

In Asia, shares in Samsung jumped 3.5%, while SK Hynix’s shares gained 9.9%. Taiwan-based chipmaker TSMC’s shares climbed 3%, helping lift the Taiex by 1.5%.

Virtually all U.S. chip companies were lifted by the Samsung-SK Hynix news, with Broadcom rising 1.9% and Advanced Micro Devices climbing 3.4%.

South Korea’s Kospi closed 2.7% higher at 3,549.21.

On Wednesday, despite the U.S. government shutdown and poor September jobs data from payroll processor ADP, the S&P 500 and Dow closed at record levels. Bond yields sank though, as they usually do when the U.S, economy flashes discouraging signals.

“Markets once again proved that they love nothing more than turning a crisis into a stage set for higher prices,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

Usually, traders on Wall Street wait to react until the more comprehensive U.S. government jobs report is released to figure out how the labor market is doing. The U.S. government gets its data from a larger sample of employers than the ADP survey.

But the next Labor Department report, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be delayed because of the shutdown of the U.S. government that began just after midnight Wednesday. Thursday's weekly jobless claims report will also be delayed.

The hope on Wall Street has been that the job market will continue to slow just enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it brings a recession.

That’s a delicate balance to achieve, and every economic report from the U.S. government that gets delayed only increases uncertainty. Stocks have already run to records on expectations for coming cuts to rates, so a lack of them could send the market lower.

In other equities trading, Fair Isaac Corp. jumped 19% after the developers of the FICO credit score system announced a program that will allow mortgage lenders to access and distribute FICO scores directly to their customers, cutting out the big credit bureaus such as Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Shares in TransUnion tumbled 10.7% before the opening bell, while Equifax shares slid 11.4%.

Warren Buffett 's Berkshire Hathaway announced that it had acquired Occidental Petroleum’s chemical division for $9.7 billion, one of Buffet's biggest deals in years.

Berkshire's Class B shares were unchanged on the news, which had been rumored earlier, while Occidental shares rose 1.6%.

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. Buffett plans to remain chairman at Berkshire, which is sitting on about $344 billion in cash.

Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.9% to 44,936.73, with tech stocks leading gains.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.6% to 27,287.12. Markets in mainland China were closed for the Oct. 1-8 National Day holiday.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.1% to 8,945.90, with gold mining stocks among those leading gains. India’s BSE Sensex added 0.9% after the Reserve Bank of India opted to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged.

In Europe at midday, Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 each climbed 1.3%, also fueled by tech shares. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged up less than 0.1%.

The price for U.S. benchmark crude oil was on track to decline for a fourth straight day, shedding 41 cents to $61.37 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave back 44 cents to $64.91 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 146.77 Japanese yen from 147.08 yen. The euro rose to $1.1761 from $1.1731.

The price of gold, after seesawing between gains and losses, rose to fresh highs. As of Thursday morning, it was up around $12 at $3,909.90 per ounce. The precious metal, often used as a safe haven for investments in times of uncertainty, has been steadily climbing for months, gaining more than 37% in the past year.

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