US stock markets fell across the board with all three benchmarks down over 0.9% in the extended session. This was the biggest fall in over five weeks, with all major industry groups falling, but particularly materials and energy.
President Biden is set to propose a near doubling of the capital gains tax rate for those earning over US$1 million to 39.6% in an effort to meet his ‘tax the rich’ election policies.
Meanwhile, China has vowed to significantly reduce coal consumption in the 2026 to 2030 period, with suggestions the major user will see peak demand in 2025.
Intel misses expectations
Intel (NYSE: INTC) suffered a decline in sales, which pushed quarterly profit down to US$3.4 billion from US$5.6 billion in the prior year, while revenue was broadly flat.
The company reported strong growth in client or home computing with sales up 8%, but its key data centre division saw a 20% drop in revenue as competition increased from its rivals; shares fell 1.8%.
AT&T’s streams ahead
AT&T (NYSE: T) shares jumped 4.2% after reporting the company’s HBO Max streaming business had grown subscribers by 3 million to 44.2 million and delivered a 9.4% increase in mobility or mobile revenue.
This comes as Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) reported earnings earlier in the week, with shares tumbling as subscriber growth slows.
Market movers
Here are how some popular US stocks fared in Thursday’s session:
- Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM) up 1.7%
- Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) up 1.6%
- Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) down 1.6%
- Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) down 1.6%
- Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) down 1.2%
- Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) down 3.3%
- Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) down 4.0%
- Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) down 4.5%
Looking ahead, the S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) is expected to follow US markets lower this morning. For all the latest, check out Rask Media’s daily ASX 200 report.
