Musk's SpaceX helps launch stock market gains

Stock markets mostly rose Wednesday, with sentiment boosted by news that Elon Musk's SpaceX reported its first quarterly profit as a publicly traded company.

The announcement, which followed the close of Tuesday's trading on Wall Street, helped push up technology stocks in particular.

Shares in SpaceX jumped 9.5 percent as trading got underway in New York, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6 percent.

SpaceX's net profit of $4.4 billion for July-September was more than double what analysts had expected and compared with a loss of $1.1 billion a year earlier.

Revenue at the firm -- which listed after a world-record initial public offering in June -- soared 161 percent to $14.6 billion.

"SpaceX delivered some impressive earnings results and guidance, to go along with a pronouncement that it could rent out its AI compute capacity many times over if it was able," said market analyst Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

"That was relief music to the ears of investors in the likes of CoreWeave and Nebius," he added.

Shares and bonds of firms like CoreWeave, which have borrowed heavily to build AI data centres, took a beating last week as investors worried that high interest rates could sink their business models.

Server-maker Super Micro Computer also provided a fillip to buying sentiment when it said preliminary quarterly earnings had come in better than forecast.

The developments soothed worries on trading floors about the outlook for the AI boom, which has seen companies pump hundreds of billions into research and development of software, data centres and other hardware.

"Clear earnings beats and constructive corporate updates are helping to ease some of the AI anxiety that has surfaced in recent sessions," said KCM Trade analyst Tim Waterer.

The next test of AI anxiety will be Wednesday evening, when Tesla and Facebook parent Meta report their results after Wall Street closes.

"If (Meta and Tesla's) reports deliver similarly strong results and guidance, it could go some way toward reigniting broader AI enthusiasm and giving the sector more sustained momentum," Waterer said.

In Seoul, the stock price of tech infrastructure firm Elice soared nearly 30 percent, having tanked on its trading debut Tuesday.

The Paris stock market climbed one percent in afternoon deals amid some extreme movement among individual stocks.

EssilorLuxottica soared more than 14 percent after the world's top maker of eyeglasses announced late Tuesday a 24 percent jump in sales of lenses that help slow short-sightedness in children.

But supermarket giant Carrefour plunged more than 13 percent after it warned that the recent violent protests across France would dent profits.

Chief executive Alexandre Bompard said around 50 Carrefour stores were looted over the weekend, and it expects operating profit will be cut this year by 80 million to 200 million euros ($90-$225 million) as a result.

The yield on France's benchmark 10-year government bond meanwhile briefly rose above five percent, its highest level since 2002, as investors demanded a higher return for holding the country's debt amid a budget standoff and the protests.

In foreign exchange, the British pound firmed against the dollar and euro as analysts said a bigger than expected jump for UK inflation last month increased the likelihood of the Bank of England raising its benchmark interest rate next month.

New York - Dow: UP 0.1 percent at 52,566.53 points

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.3 percent at 7,732.40

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.6 percent at 26,593.56

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 10,763.00

Paris - CAC 40: UP 1.0 percent at 7,914.98

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 1.4 percent at 25,646.70

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.9 percent at 64,621.24 (close)

Seoul - Kospi: UP 3.3 percent at 5,735.66 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.9 percent at 23,651.87 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 3,713.03 (close)

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.5 percent at $108.25 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.6 percent at $97.19 per barrel

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1233 from $1.1235 on Tuesday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3391 from $1.3378

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 157.99 yen from 158.23 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 83.86 pence from 83.98 pence