A look at the day ahead in European and global markets

By Gregor Stuart Hunter, Asia Finance & Markets Breaking News Correspondent

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It's Nvidia's world now, we just live in it. In case there were any doubt, the chip designer <NVDA.O> forecast a 70% jump in revenue next fiscal year, a rare disclosure from the world's biggest company of sales so far ahead and a show of confidence that demand for its AI chips will remain unabated as far as early 2028.

The stock was up almost 5% in after-hours trading, showing little sign of slowing down after a report in The Information that Nvidia has agreed to pay $12.9 billion to ⁠buy AI platform Hugging Face.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks during a doorstep after attending the AI Ecosystem Reception in Tokyo, Japan, July 16, 2026. REUTERS/Manami Yamada/File Photo

That's the same open-source platform that was hacked into last month by OpenAI, which created a swarm of approximately 700 AI agents which tried to cover their tracks, according to an independent investigation into the breach.

More details are trickling out about the behaviour of OpenAI's rogue agents, including the company's disclosure that some of the bots it spun up later broke into its own networks during tests gone wrong.

However unsettling for humanity that may be, all of that has been great news for Asian chipmakers in Nvidia's supply chain. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MISX00000PUS), opens new tab was up 0.5%, ‌led by ⁠a 1.8% rise in the KOSPI (.KS11), opens new tab, which shrugged off a 25-basis-point rate hike from the Bank of Korea. S&P 500 e-mini futures climbed 0.5%.

Graphics are produced by Reuters

In oil markets, Brent crude was down 0.5% at $87.40 and is on track to fall for a fourth consecutive day as Qatar's prime minister heads to Tehran in an effort to relaunch peace talks ⁠between the U.S. and Iran.

Gold rallied 0.7% to $4,624.14 after a pullback on Wednesday, while in cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin was up 0.5% at $78,822.84 while ether climbed 0.8% to $2,492.30.

All three are benefiting from the revival of so-called "dollar debasement trades" after ⁠the U.S. Treasury department intervened in bond markets last week, this month up 14%, 25% and 34% respectively.

In early European trades, pan-region futures were up 0.4%, German DAX futures edged 0.1% higher, and ⁠FTSE futures were down 0.4%.