Pre-market U.S. Stock News Roundup: Google Launches Gemini Agent, Fed's Waller Says Further Flexible Rate Hikes Still Needed

2026-10-08 20:35 (UTC+8)

Odaily News: Ahead of the U.S. stock market open, the key market and financial news investors should focus on is as follows:

1. U.S. stock index futures edged lower. Dow Jones futures fell 0.72%, S&P 500 futures fell 0.41%, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.64%.

2. International oil prices surged across the board. WTI crude oil futures rose 4.81% to $92.525 per barrel; Brent crude oil futures rose 4.83% to $105.039 per barrel.

3. International gold and silver spot prices showed mixed performance. Spot gold rose 0.49% to $4,130.91 per ounce; spot silver fell 1.36% to $58.96 per ounce.

4. Europe's three major stock indices all declined. The UK's FTSE 100 fell 0.10%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.46%, and Germany's DAX 30 fell 0.86%.

5. Google Cloud launched the Gemini agent, positioned as a general-purpose work agent that can run on either Gemini models or Claude models. As a result, Google rose more than 1% in pre-market trading, while Meta fell more than 1%.

6. Broadcom is arranging over $50 billion in financing for its custom AI chip project developed in collaboration with OpenAI. People familiar with the matter said Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are among the lenders in talks to participate in the financing.

7. U.S. silicon carbide leader Wolfspeed surged more than 15% in pre-market trading after the company received a $1.5 billion conditional loan commitment from the U.S. Department of Defense.

8. Globalfoundries signed a $2 billion silicon interposer agreement with TSMC for advanced AI packaging, with an initial term of 5 years.

9. TSMC's September sales were NT$511.86 billion, down 0.6% month-over-month and up 54.6% year-over-year. TSMC's revenue for the first three quarters of 2026 was NT$3,898.73 billion, up 41.1% year-over-year.

10. Citi said it expects the CPU market to reach $300 billion by 2030, sharply raised its AMD target price from $575 to $800, and maintained a "Buy" rating.

11. Investment bank DA Davidson sharply raised Micron Technology's target price from $2,100 to $3,000, the highest on Wall Street, and reiterated a "Buy" rating.

12. OpenAI fully rolled out GPT-6 to all ChatGPT free and paid users worldwide, officially replacing GPT-5.6 SOL and GPT-5.6 LUNA.

13. Federal Reserve Governor Waller said further rate hikes are still needed, but there is "flexibility" in the pace of hikes. The dot plot may reflect a rate hike in early 2027, followed by rate cuts thereafter.