U.S. stock futures rise ahead of the open of the first day of a Thanksgiving-shortened trading week on Wall Street, as investors await the release of minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting and Nvidia results. (NASDAQ:NVDA), the artificial intelligence company, on Tuesday. Sam Altman is joining Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) after a dramatic weekend in which he was removed from the board of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Elsewhere, Cruise president Kyle Vogt is resigning after a series of recent missteps at the robotaxi group. Here we have the five main issues to be aware of this Monday, November 20, in the financial markets.
- Futures rise
U.S. stock futures hover just above the flat line to begin a Thanksgiving-shortened trading week, as traders await minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting, as They try to predict the future course of the central bank's monetary policy.
At 11:09 AM ET, the Dow futures contract is up 26 points or 0.1%, the S&P 500 futures are up 6 points or 0.1% and the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 6 points or 0.1%. They advance 32 points or 0.2%.
Wall Street's major indexes closed the previous day slightly in the green, helping the benchmark S&P 500 index and the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average post their first three-week winning streaks since the summer. For its part, the Nasdaq Composite technology index recorded its best week since June.
On Tuesday, traders will have the opportunity to analyze the minutes of the Fed's November meeting, in which it was decided to keep interest rates in a target range of between 5.25% and 5.50%. This release will likely be one of the highlights of the economic agenda in a week truncated by the Thanksgiving holiday.
This week's business results will also include quarterly figures from Nvidia, the Californian chipmaker that has been in the spotlight for generative artificial intelligence. Lowe's (NYSE:LOW) will also release its results, becoming the latest department store retailer to provide an update on the state of the American consumer heading into the crucial holiday shopping season.
- Altman will lead Microsoft's new artificial intelligence team - Nadella
Microsoft is set to hire Sam Altman to lead a new advanced artificial intelligence research team, just days after the prominent AI industry figure was ousted as CEO of OpenAI.
In a post on social media site president of OpenAI—"the resources necessary for your success."
The Information reported this Monday that Altman, one of the leading voices in the global debate over the rapid expansion of nascent AI technology, will no longer return as CEO of OpenAI despite efforts to rehire him. The report cites an internal speech by co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever.
Instead, OpenAI will hire streaming site Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as interim CEO, according to media reports.
Altman was seen meeting with OpenAI's board this weekend, after he was unexpectedly fired on Friday and replaced on an interim basis by chief technology officer Mira Murati. The upheaval, which The Information said followed an internal disagreement over AI safety, threatens to cast a shadow over OpenAI's leadership just a week after its mega-popular chatbot ChatGPT hit 100 million weekly users.
- Cruise CEO resigns
The CEO of the company Cruise, backed by General Motors (NYSE:GM), has resigned after the high-profile accident that caused the interruption of operations of its autonomous driving vehicles.
CEO Kyle Vogt confirmed his resignation in a post on X on Sunday, adding that the group is "still getting started, and I think it has a great future ahead of it."
Reuters has reported that Vogt, who founded the firm in 2013, told employees in an email that he had "resigned from his position." Over this weekend, Vogt had reportedly apologized to staff, saying "there are no excuses, and there is no way to sugarcoat what happened."
The board shakeup comes after the California Department of Motor Vehicles accused Cruise of failing to release all video footage of an October crash in which a pedestrian was dragged by one of its driving taxis. autonomous. Cruise has said he "proactively shared" the information with authorities.
The California Department of Traffic subsequently ordered Cruise to remove all of his vehicles from state roads, warning him that they posed a risk to the public. Cruise suspended all vehicle operations and announced the retirement of 950 of its robotaxis.
