ECB Rate Cut
The European Central Bank cut interest rates and kept the door open to further policy easing. The officials reduced the deposit rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 2.75%. It was the fifth ECB rate cut since June and markets expect two or three more this year.
Apple Q1 Results
Apple reported a 4% rise in its overall revenue for the fiscal first quarter, but it missed Wall Street's iPhone sales expectations, while its China sales declined 11.1%. Apple shares rallied about 3% in extended trading after the company forecast relatively strong sales growth for the March quarter.
Apple reported total sales of $124.30 billion for the fiscal first quarter ended December 28, while earnings per share of $2.40 comfortably beat the consensus target of $2.35. iPhone sales dropped slightly to $69.14 billion.
Samsung Q4 Results
Samsung Electronics' operating profits in the fourth quarter of 2024 surged 129.85% to 6.5 trillion won ($4.5 billion) from 2.82 trillion won a year earlier. The profit was down 29% from the previous quarter. Sales for the October to December quarter rose 11.8% to 75.78 trillion won, while net income of 7.75 trillion won was up 22.2% from a year earlier. Samsung said it expected limited first-quarter earnings growth due to weak memory chip business conditions, as it continues to work towards providing high-end chips to Nvidia. Samsung share price was down 2.2%.
Dollar
The US dollar edged higher on Thursday. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.2% to 108.12. The greenback weakened 0.54% to 154.36 against the Japanese yen. The euro reversed earlier gains and was down 0.24% at $1.0395.
Gold Price Today
Gold prices rose to a record high. Bullion rose as much as 0.2% to $2,799.65 an ounce after prices jumped 1.3% on Thursday.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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