James Gruber

Gold futures weren't so fortunate, as they dropped overnight on a stronger US dollar.

with futures settling down 0.6% to US$4,724 an ounce.

Lastly, not much news with iron ore, which left their prices flat.

Yeah, so investors were waiting for clearer signals on the US-Iran war.

And there was also a batch of mixed earnings reports, which reignited concerns about AI-driven disruption again, as was highlighted during March, the month of March, where software really got caned and it's come back since.

IBM, though, slumped 8% after revenue growth slowed in the first quarter on weakness in its software business.

The results revived concerns that the software sector's traditional business models could be upended by new AI tools.

Business software companies' service now slumped 17% after reporting results that were slowed by the Middle East war.

The S&P 500 information technology sector fell 1.5%.

Tesla shares fell 3.6% after the company raised its spending plan to more than $25 billion US for the year.

That was despite a better than expected result aftermarket yesterday.

Defense company Lockheed Martin dropped almost 5% after reporting a lower first quarter profit.

Meanwhile, car rental company Avis Budget shares slumped 48%.

That's a lot, but it's followed an incredible rally that's a bit reminiscent of the meme stock craze.

One major gainer for the day, though, was Texas Instruments, which surged 19% after forecasting second quarter revenue and profit above Wall Street expectations.

Moving to U.S.

government bond yields, they let go of most of their gains after data showed initial jobless claims rose by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 214,000 for the week, higher than expected.

The US 10-year Treasury yield was up three points to 4.32%, while the US two-year Treasury yield was also up three points to 3.82%.

This one's a bit different and not directly market related, but it's about AI and its potential pitfalls.

So late last month, the book publisher Hatchet cancelled the US release of horror novel Shy Girl and also withdrew the UK edition after weeks of online speculation about AI abuse.