Wall Street closed on a split note on Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 seized spotlight with their new record highs while Nasdaq traded in red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 climbed to fresh milestones on Thursday, lifted by investors still riding the momentum set off by the Federal Reserve’s latest rate cut. The Dow rose 1.3%, driven by strong gains in banks and industrial stocks, while the S&P 500 also pushed into record territory, ending at 0.21% gain. The rally followed an upbeat session in Europe and a mixed day in Asia, with global markets continuing to respond positively to the Fed’s less hawkish tone on Wednesday (local time). But the Nasdaq’s 0.3% dip highlighed the market’s lingering nerves around AI-linked valuations. The Nasdaq, however, was weighed down by a sharp slump in Oracle shares that reignited long-standing worries about the soaring cost of artificial intelligence bets.“Even as investors were reassured by the Fed’s latest rate cut, familiar concerns about AI are still very much top of mind right now,” Deutsche Bank managing director Jim Reid told AFP.The concerns resurfaced after Oracle revealed late on Wednesday that its quarterly revenue had fallen short of expectations and that it had ramped up spending on data centres to expand AI capacity. The stock sank 10.8% by the close, having earlier fallen even further.Dave Grecsek of Aspiriant Wealth Management said the reaction highlighted the market’s discomfort with the scale of AI-related investments.“There’s still a lot of apprehension about how sustainable some of these capital spending plans are, what the return on those investments are, and especially now that they’re financed with debt,” he said, as cited by AFP.Last month, global markets briefly faltered as investors were cautious by the AI bubble concept, questioning whether the massive sums flowing into artificial intelligence risked inflating a bubble that could eventually burst.The Fed’s rate cut, its third in a row, was anticipated, but an unusually high number of dissenting votes has clouded expectations over where borrowing costs are headed next.“Investors have shrugged off the Fed’s latest reduction in US borrowing costs as it is becoming harder to guess where rates might go next,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.Fed officials remain split on the outlook for 2026, including whether more cuts will be needed and how many. Still, eToro US analyst Bret Kenwell noted that Fed Chair Jerome Powell pointed out that none of the policymakers foresee rate hikes in 2026 in their baseline scenario.“The lack of an outright hawkish tone from the Fed combined with its third consecutive rate cut could pave the way for a potential year-end rally in equities, provided that next week’s macroeconomic data doesn’t derail the recent bullish momentum,” Kenwell said.The reduction brings interest rates to their lowest level in three years as policymakers attempt to shore up a labour market that has shown signs of strain throughout 2025.The dollar weakened while oil prices slipped following the decision.Among corporate movers, Disney added 2.4% after unveiling a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI, giving users the ability to create short AI-generated videos featuring popular Disney characters.

A former crypto entrepreneur who was behind two digital currencies that collapsed and lost an estimated $40bn ($29.9bn) has been sentenced by a New York judge to 15 years in prison for an “epic” fraud.

Do Kwon, a South Korean national, was co-founder of Singapore-based Terraform Labs, which developed the TerraUSD and Luna digital coins.

Kwon had admitted misleading investors about TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin that was supposed to maintain its value against the US dollar.

He was one of a number of crypto bosses to face charges in the US after digital tokens slumped in 2022, triggering the failure of several companies.

US District Judge Paul A Engelmayer, who handed down the sentence, said the Stanford graduate had repeatedly lied to investors who trusted him with their money.

“This was a fraud on an epic, generational scale,” he said during Thursday’s court hearing in Manhattan.

“In the history of federal prosecutions, there are few frauds that have caused as much harm as you have.”

Kwon – who pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud – expressed remorse to the judge.

“I have spent almost every waking moment of the last few years thinking of what I could have done different and what I can do now to make things right,” he said.

Prosecutors alleged that when TerraUSD fell below its $1 peg in May 2021, Kwon told investors that a computer algorithm had restored its value.

Instead, Kwon had arranged for a trading firm to secretly buy millions of dollars of the coin to artificially boost its value, according to court documents.

Ireland’s reliance on multinationals and international exports means “global shocks” pose “a great challenge for the Irish economy”, a new report has claimed.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) study looked at what might happen with the Irish economy over the next decade.

The think tank describes the outlook as “relatively favourable” but the report authors stressed it is a projection, not a forecast, and said “the assumption that nothing will move the economy from its current trajectory is unrealistic”.

The report – entitled Ireland’s medium-term economic outlook: Risks and opportunities – warns the country is vulnerable to external risks and “unforeseen shocks”.

It said this is a particular issue because budget surpluses are based on windfall corporation tax receipts and “windfall taxes by definition could disappear rapidly”, meaning a five billion euro surplus could become a deficit of 13 billion euro.

The presence of multinational corporations “remains a tremendous positive for the Irish economy”, the report said, but it also highlights the importance of domestic businesses to help “mitigate” economic risk.

The report focused on a number of scenarios which could impact Ireland’s economy in the near future including: a global slowdown, a loss of competitiveness between Ireland and its trading partners, and an exodus of multinational companies and a change in the productivity levels of Irish-owned firms.

The report also found Ireland’s economy has had a ”remarkable performance” over the last 10 years, despite international and domestic challenges including Brexit and the pandemic.

It said this had led to employment and population growth “all of which should be celebrated”, but also that the speed of population growth after “a period of low public investment following the great recession” has contributed to the housing crisis.

ESRI director Professor Martina Lawless said, without any shocks, the projections show “a reasonably positive continuation of growth, although at a more moderate level than it has been over the last number of years”.

It also shows “a number of fairly plausible external risks could have significant repercussions on the economy”.

She said the most “impactful” ways to offset the risk would be “rebalancing the composition of the economy and supporting the productivity growth of the Irish-owned firms”.

She also noted that while the report covers the next decade, there are “much longer-term challenges” including an ageing population and climate change which are projected to hit economic activity in the mid to late 2030s.

She described the next 10 years as an “opportunity” for policies to promote the “fundamental building blocks that support economic activity”.

These include encouraging smaller firms to invest in research and development, building the country’s skills base and building up public infrastructure where there are “big deficits at the moment in housing, healthcare, transport and other utilities”.