Stock Market Live October 6: S&P 500 (VOO) Rises on Government Shutdown Day 6
Key Points
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Monday dawns with the U.S. government still shut down.
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OpenAI will acquire a stake in AMD and buy AMD chips for its ChatGPT AI service.
Live Updates
Monday Wrap-up
ASML Downgraded
New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu downgraded ASML Inc. (Nasdaq: ASML | ASML Price Prediction) stock to neutral — and investors don’t care.
Ferragu says “the outlook for AI spending has strengthened in recent months, driving a rally in semicap stocks,” but acceleration will “peak” next year, with “a weak outlook beyond 2026.”
That’s bad news for ASML stock, but it’s up 2% today.
International Paper Shredded
Seaport Global Securities analyst Mark Weintraub downgraded S&P 500 component company International Paper (NYSE: IP) stock to neutral today.
“We have been impressed with the roll-out and implementation of 80/20 as well as the palpable energy brought by the new IP leadership team,” says Weintraub. However, “there are plenty of risks (many of them macro-related and outside of management’s control) so that, largely because of relative valuation, we would now be more inclined to put new money into” other stocks.
International Paper stock is down 3.2% today. The Voo is still up 0.3%.
Micron Moves Higher
Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore upgraded S&P 500 component company Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) stock to overweight with a $220 price target.
“Momentum on core DRAM pricing continues to surprise us … with potential for double digit sequential price improvement calendar 4q and 1q,” says Moore. “At the same time near term worries on HBM are becoming solved by DRAM economic improvement.”
Micron stock is up 3%.
This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.
It’s Day 6 of the Government Shutdown of 2025, and even as our government grinds to a halt, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) keeps grinding higher. The ETF is up 0.3% in early trading.
What’s keeping the market moving today? Well, with the government shut down, we have no official economic news to report. Instead, what we do have is quite a bit of moving and shaking in the corporate world.
In banking today, regional bank Fifth Third (Nasdaq: FITB) says it will buy rival Comerica (NYSE: CMA) in a $10.9 billion, all-stock transaction. If the merger goes through it will create America’s ninth largest bank. Fifth Third stock is up 1.5% on the news, and Comerica shares are up more than 17%.
Because Fifth Third is an S&P 500 component company, and Comerica is not (yet), though, this merger announcement is going to actually hurt, not help, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF today.
And in AI news, privately-held OpenAI is teaming up with S&P 500 component company Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) in a different way. Every hungry for more artificial intelligence computer chips, OpenAI has struck a deal to buy 6 gigawatt-hours’ worth of chips from AMD. In return for OpenAI’s business, AMD will grant the AI giant warrants to acquire up to 160 million shares of AMD stock (that’s about 10% of the company).
Yes, strange as it sounds, you read that right: OpenAI will give AMD money, and in return it will get both chips and stock in AMD. In fact, the stock may be more valuable to OpenAI than the chips. AMD shares are up more than 31% on the news.
Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
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