Nvidia (NVDA)

Shares in Nvidia surged as much as 4.8% on Wednesday on the back of analysts reiterating "buy" ratings on the chipmaker.

However, the stock then fell in US afternoon trading on Wednesday, ending the day around 1% in the red. This came amid a broader decline in US markets, after the Federal Reserve signalled that there would be fewer interest rate cuts in 2025 than previously projected.

The Fed cut rates by 0.25% on Wednesday, as anticipated. However, Fed chair Jerome Powell said: "The slower pace of cuts for next year really reflects both the higher inflation readings we had this year and the expectation inflation will be higher."

Read more: FTSE 100 LIVE: Markets follow US lower as Bank of England expected to hold interest rates

Nvidia's stock has since rebounded in pre-market trading, rising 2%. The stock looks on course for a comfortable triple-digit percentage gain once again in 2024.

A key contributor to this rise has been the hot demand for its AI Blackwell chip, which only started being shipped in the final quarter of the year.

“Technically, Blackwell is a beast,” Matt Kimball, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told Yahoo Finance in an email. He added that the graphics processing unit was an "exponential leap forward".

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Micron Technology (MU)

Another chipmaker in focus is Micron, with shares down 16% in pre-market trading on Thursday, after second-quarter guidance missed estimates.

The memory chipmaker posted revenue of $8.71bn (£6.89bn) for the first quarter, which was in line with analyst estimates. Micron also reported an adjusted earnings beat of $1.79 per share.

Read more: Pound, gold and oil prices in focus: commodity and currency check, 19 December

However, the company's second-quarter forecast of $8.1bn in revenue on the high end fell short of Wall Street's expectation of $8.99bn.

Ben Barringer, technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said: "The PC and smartphone side of the business has performed poorly, but its AI datacentre demand has been good.

"Nonetheless, the memory industry is incredibly sensitive to supply and demand imbalance, and at the moment supply appears to be exceeding demand in some areas."

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Coinbase (COIN)

Bitcoin (BTC-USD) fell on Wednesday after Powell said that the Fed was not able to hold the cryptocurrency, which was something the central bank was not seeking to change.

"We're not allowed to own bitcoin," Powell said in a press conference following the Fed's interest rate decision.

As for the legal issues of holding bitcoin, Powell said that this was the "kind of thing for Congress to consider, but we are not looking for a law change at the Fed", according to Reuters.

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Bitcoin had fallen back to $101,815 on Thursday morning, having topped $108,000 on Tuesday. Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase, which is consider a proxy stock for the digital tokens, closed Wednesday's session 10% in the red.

Powell's comments come ahead of president-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House in January, after having won the US election last month. Trump said in his election campaign that he planned to make the US the global capital for cryptocurrency and he'd create a national stockpile of bitcoin.

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Nissan (7201.T)

Shares in carmaker Nissan continued to rise on Thursday, closing the session in Tokyo up 6.5%.

The stock jumped 24% in the previous session following reports that it was set to start merger talks with Honda (HMC).

According to a report from Nikkei Asia, the two carmakers are planning to begin talks with the hope of joining their resources amid increasing competition in the electric vehicle (EV) space.

Read more: Stocks that are trending today

The carmakers are considering operating under a holding company and may look for an eventual three-way tie-up with Mitsubishi (8058.T), the report said.

A spokesperson for Nissan said: "The content of the reports that Honda, Nissan and MMC are considering a business integration is not based on an announcement from our company.

"As announced in March and August of this year, Nissan, Honda, and MMC are considering various possibilities for future collaboration including the content of the report, but no decisions have been made."

A spokesperson for Honda said: “Media reports that Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi are considering a business integration are not based on an announcement from our company."

Severn Trent (SVT.L)

Water companies Severn Trent and United Utilities (UU.L) were the top risers in the FTSE 100 (^FTSE) on Thursday morning, up nearly 2% and 1% respectively.

This came after the UK water industry regulator Ofwat announced that it had approved a £104bn ($131bn) upgrade to accelerate delivery of cleaner rivers and seas.

However, to help fund these upgrades, it said that the average water bill would rise by 20% to £86 next year, though there would be smaller percentage increases in the following four years.

Read more: Are there any major UK companies ripe for takeover bids in 2025? Have your say

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "This news may not trigger a flood of new buyers for water company shares given a lot of the increase in bills will go towards investing in creaking infrastructure.

"After all, with bills going up but problems around sewage spills and water outages continuing at current levels, some will feel this doesn’t appear a sustainable state of affairs."

Severn Trent said that it had been given the green light for a £15bn investment programme to improve its services and boost river health.

Other companies in the news on Thursday 19 December:

Amazon (AMZN)

Baidu (9888.HK)

Serco (SRP.L)

Carnival (CCL)

Darden Restaurants (DRI)

CarMax (KMX)

BlackBerry Limited (BB)

Read more:

Bank of England set to hold interest rates at 4.75% Stocks to watch this week: Nike, Micron, Accenture, FedEx and Birkenstock UK inflation rises to 2.6% in November

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