US Stocks Drift, Oil Prices Jump After Trump's "Massive" Russia Sanctions

Stocks are drifting on Wall Street, and oil prices are jumping after President Donald Trump announced "massive" new sanctions on Russia's crude industry. The S&P 500 rose 0.1 per cent in the early going on Thursday. It's just a bit below the all-time high it set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed, and the Nasdaq composite was also flat. Tesla fell after reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, even though its revenue rose more than forecast. The price of oil jumped 5.6 per cent after Trump announced sanctions against Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.

The sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil are intended to drive Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and help end Moscow's brutal war on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, European Union leaders were holding a summit on Thursday, aiming to greenlight still more sanctions against Russia and press ahead with plans to use Moscow's assets that are frozen in Europe to fund Ukraine's war effort and economy for at least the next two years.

US benchmark crude oil gained $3.13 to $61.63 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose $3.13 to $65.72 per barrel.

Tesla slid 3.2 per cent after the electric car maker run by Elon Musk reported that its third-quarter earnings plunged 37 per cent from a year ago, marking the fourth quarter in a row that profit declined.

In a conference call with investors, Musk shifted attention away from selling cars while highlighting Tesla's other businesses, including its driverless robotaxi service, its AI product and its Optimus robots.

IBM sank 6.8 per cent after its results showed a slowdown in cloud revenue growth, even as it beat Wall Street's sales and profit targets. IBM says that the cloud and AI remain its two prime areas of focus.

Molina Healthcare tumbled more than 20 per cent after it badly missed analysts' third-quarter profit targets and slashed its full-year earnings forecast well below expectations due to ongoing cost pressures across all segments.

At midday in Europe, Germany's DAX slipped 0.3 per cent, Britain's FTSE 100 added 0.6 per cent, and the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.4 per cent.

Chinese shares rose from losses earlier in the day as leaders in Beijing were wrapping up an important Communist Party meeting that will set the agenda for the coming five years.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added 0.7 per cent to 25,967.98 while the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.2 per cent to 3,922.41 as reports indicated Washington may tighten restrictions on exports to China of products made using US software.

Japan's Nikkei 225 shed nearly 1.4 per cent to 48,641.61 on reports that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is preparing a stimulus package larger than last year's of nearly 14 trillion yen (about $92 billion). SoftBank Group led losers, with shares shedding more than 4 per cent after it unveiled plans to finance its investments in artificial intelligence by issuing US dollar and euro-dominated bonds.

Takaichi has also said she favours keeping interest rates near their current low level of close to zero, and that has caused the Japanese yen to weaken against the dollar. The dollar rose to 152.75 Japanese yen on Thursday, up from 151.94 yen.

South Korea's Kospi fell 1 per cent to 3,845.56, with investors remaining cautious while trade negotiations with the US made limited progress.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added less than 0.1 per cent to 9,032.80.

Taiwan's Taiex slipped 0.4 per cent, while India's BSE Sensex rose 0.6 per cent.

In other trading on Thursday, the price of gold recovered about 1.6 per cent to $4,131.80 after sliding for two days from its record high.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)