Broadcom more than tripled its profit and nearly doubled its revenue in the third quarter, as the company said demand for its custom semiconductors should continue growing for the next two years. The company has in recent years found a lucrative business designing purpose-built computer chips for artificial-intelligence labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Their computing needs are only increasing, Chief Executive Hock Tan told analysts on a Wednesday call. “We believe the vast majority of compute demand for AI workloads today originates from this concentrated group who develops state of the art frontier models, and we expect their need for compute infrastructure to inflect even more in 2027 and 2028,” Tan said, adding that the demand continues to grow exponentially. He added that Broadcom has begun shipping the latest generation of Google TPUs and OpenAI Jalapeño chips and is already developing OpenAI’s second- and third-generation chips. Custom chips for Meta Platforms will begin shipping in the current quarter.

Despite spending much of the day's trading session in negative territory, the Switzerland market closed slightly up on Wednesday thanks to selective buying at a few counters in the final hour. The benchmark SMI, which edged up slightly at the start, soon slipped into negative territory and emerged above the flat line in late afternoon to close with a gain of 28.18 points or 0.2% at 14,362.97, nearly 20 points off the day's high of 14,382.04. VAT Group climbed over 4%. Alcon gained 1.8%, while Sonova, UBS Group and Swisscom closed higher by 1.1%-1.4%. Lonza Group moved up nearly 1%. Givaudan, Schindler Ps, Holcim and Amrize closed lower by 1.3%-1.6%. Straumann Holding, Sika and Partners Group lost 1%-1.1%. Galderma Group, ABB, Lindt & Spruengli and Zurich Insurance also ended weak.

Europe
European stocks closed broadly lower on Wednesday, extending recent losses, as higher oil prices, rising bond yields, worries about geopolitical tensions and prospects of interest rate hikes by major central banks continued to weigh on sentiment. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down 0.24%. The UK's FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 closed lower by 0.3%, 0.5% and 0.26%, respectively. Switzerland's SMI bucked the trend again, gaining 0.2% thank to late buying at a few frontline counters. Among other markets in Europe, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Türkiye closed weak. Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands and Poland ended higher, while Austria and Belgium closed flat. In the UK market, Kingfisher, Computacenter, Metlen Energy & Metals, Experian, LSEG, United Utilities, Barratt Redrow, Reckitt Benckiser and Severn Trent lost 2.3%-4%. Marks & Spencer, Melrose Industries, Centrica, Relx, IG Group Holdings, BAE Systems and National Grid were among the other notable losers. Intercontinental Hotels Group moved up 3.2%. Fresnillo, Endeavour Mining, Convatec Group, Standard Chartered, Diageo, Halma, HSBC Holdings, Natwest Group and Rolls-Royce Holdings also closed on positive note. In the German market, Zalando, Volkswagen, Porsche Automobil Holding, Gea Group, Daimler Truck Holding, Scout24, Continental, Vonovia, Hochtief, Deutsche Boerse, Heidelberg Materials, SAP, Siemens, Mercedes-Benz and Brenntag closed notably lower.

United States
U.S. stocks rose as a rally in Treasury yields stalled, but equity and bond moves were muted as oil prices continued climbing due to clashes between Iran and the U.S. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 295.07 points, or 0.56%, to 53061.95. The S&P 500 added 35.13 points, or 0.46%, to 7666.60 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 118.05 points, or 0.45%, to 26217.83. Private companies added 38,000 employees to payrolls in August, a slowdown from July and fewer than economists had anticipated, according to the latest survey from ADP. That was the most meager private payroll growth since January, and foreshadowed potential weakness in the Labor Department's report on Friday. U.S. oil major Chevron laid out plans to invest more than $7 billion in Venezuela over the next five years, doubling its production in the country's oil fields following a push from the Trump administration. AI growth optimism was revived by a report from the PwC consulting and accounting firm. PwC forecast cumulative spending on AI to top $31 trillion by 2050. Shares of Nvidia, one of the chief beneficiaries of the data-center spending boom, rose 3.2% to $224.41. Dell Technologies soared 16% to $492.20 after the server maker said AI demand had caused its order backlog to almost double to $95 billion by the end of the second quarter, dwarfing Wall Street benchmarks. Palo Alto Networks tumbled 9.3% to $328.48. Even 34% quarterly revenue growth could not meet investors' lofty expectations of AI-driven demand growth for the company's cybersecurity software. A federal judge rejected the Justice Department's request to dismantle Google's online advertising business; the second time the company has fended off the threat of divestiture after being found to have illegally maintained a monopoly.

Asia
Following the sometimes sharp losses of the previous day, the situation on the Asian stock markets is stabilizing on Thursday. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 is up 0.4 per cent at 64,557 points – whilst the broader Topix index is up 1.0 per cent.

Bonds
The yield on the policy-sensitive two-year U.S. Treasury declined 0.008 percentage point to 4.383%. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell 0.002 percentage point to 4.793%, after testing 2026 highs early in the session. The 30-year bond yield was unchanged at 5.266%. Yields snapped a five-session streak of gains.

Analysis
UBS raises its Comet target to CHF 490 (446) – Buy
UBS raises its Inficon target to CHF 215 (190) – Buy
Bank of America lowers its Prosus target to EUR 65 (66) – Buy


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