A small group of seven companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, have become so dominant that they alone contributed to more than half of the S&P 500’s

Apple revealed quarterly results that slightly exceeded Wall Street expectations, SoftBank is in talks to invest as much as $25bn into OpenAI, and the European Central Bank cut interest rates as it warned about headwinds to the bloc’s economy.

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son is shifting his focus away from investments in China and toward the US, as seen with his involvement with President Donald Trump and the recently announced Stargate.

Shares of Japanese chip-related firms were feeling the heat on Monday. Today’s slump comes as Chinese AI startup DeepSeek gained traction with its updated AI model, raising fears about potential challenges to US technological dominance.

DeepSeek threatens to disrupt the AI sector in a similar way to how Chinese companies have already upended industries such as EVs and mining.

BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mixed on Thursday after China rolled out more moves to try to boost its lagging stock markets by raising confidence that prices will rise. Germany's DAX gained 0.2% to 21,300 and the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.1% higher to 7,847.38. Britain's FTSE 100 slipped less than 0.1% to 8,539.88.

The partnership formed by Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank is due to invest up to $500 billion. SoftBank's shares rose 3.7% on Thursday in Tokyo trading after jumping 11% the day before. Elsewhere in Asia, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia fell 0.6% to 8,383.50, while the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.8% to 2,526.98.

SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI, potentially surpassing Microsoft as its largest investor, as OpenAI seeks new funding for AI infrastructure expansion.

Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank (SFTBY) intends to invest up to $40 billion in OpenAI, leaving another initial backer, Microsoft

The Japanese conglomerate is in talks to spend up to $43 billion to boost the ChatGPT developer.

A new investment from the Japanese conglomerate would be separate from the $100 billion tied to a project announced at the White House last week.