US equities opened mixed on Thursday as investors parsed fresh corporate results and the latest signals from the technology sector. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.24%, weighed by weakness in selective mega-cap growth names, while the Dow Jones rose 0.38% and the S&P 500 was essentially flat, down 0.04%.
Nvidia, the poster child of the AI-induced market rally, slipped about 0.7% at the open despite reporting fourth-quarter revenue and earnings above expectations. The muted to negative share reaction underscores a familiar pattern of markets rewarding forward guidance and durable monetisation pathways more than one-off beats — investors appear increasingly focused on future growth visibility and margin trajectories rather than past results alone.
Chinese internet heavyweight Baidu tumbled more than 3% after disclosing that revenue for fiscal 2025 fell roughly 3% year-on-year. The decline highlights lingering challenges for China’s ad-dependent platforms as they navigate a slower advertising market, intensifying competition in AI services, and the uncertain timing of a broader domestic recovery in user spending and enterprise cloud adoption.
Together, the moves illustrate an evolving market narrative: AI’s promise continues to prop up valuations for some semiconductor and software companies, but those gains are fragile and subject to scrutiny of guidance and monetisation. Meanwhile, legacy internet businesses in China are still contending with cyclical revenue pressures and structural shifts, which can drag on global sentiment toward China-linked equities and other growth-oriented segments.