Accenture and Synopsys surge as oil climbs and European banks fall

Accenture and Synopsys shares surged on Thursday after each company set out the year ahead, and Brent crude climbed back above $100 a barrel. The S&P 500 fund ASPY added 0.18%.

Accenture rose 15.8% to $212.30. On June 18, after the Iran war hit its Middle East business, the company forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $17.75 billion to $18.40 billion and the shares fell more than 17%.

Thursday's revenue was $18.68 billion, above the top of that range. Earnings were $3.29 a share, above the $3.18 estimate.

Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive, said the company had "reached a new high of 141 quarterly client bookings of $100 million or more." Clients signed $22.2 billion of new business in the quarter.

Accenture expects revenue growth of 3% to 6% in the year ahead, before currency swings.

Synopsys rose 12.8% to $490.54 after Wednesday's investor day. The chip-design software company set next year's revenue at about $11.15 billion, growth of about 15%, above the roughly $10.8 billion analysts had expected. With that target came a multi-year agreement with Amazon Web Services worth more than $1 billion, a partnership with OpenAI, and about $1 billion of share buybacks.

Optical stocks rose on a Bernstein call

Coherent rose 10.9% after Bernstein began covering it on Wednesday, said it expects the shares to beat the market, and set a $350 price target. The same coverage called Coherent, Lumentum, Ciena and Arista structural winners in AI infrastructure. Traders were also focused on PhotonLink, an optics platform for AI data centers that Coherent introduced in September.

Lumentum rose 7.7% and Ciena rose 7.8%. These firms make the optical gear that moves data inside and between data centers.

Roundhill's photonics fund, —LYTE, rose 3.7%, less than half of Coherent's gain. A Treasury bill is 31% of the fund, and Lumentum, Coherent and Ciena together are 40%, with large swap positions in Chinese optical makers alongside them.

Tuttle's photonics fund, DFOTO, rose 6.6%. Cash is 72% of that fund, and the photonics exposure is carried through swaps. Chip stocks, through ASMH, rose 1.4%, a much smaller move than the optical names.

Oil reversed after a China export halt

Brent crude, the oil price most of the world uses, was $102.23 a barrel in late trading, up 4.3% from the prior settle and back above $100. Brent futures, in CBNO, closed up 4.8%.

Oil had been down 1% early and reversed after Chinese refiners suspended October fuel exports beyond Hong Kong and Macau. PetroChina canceled some gasoline and jet fuel cargoes planned for the month.

The jump also followed a Wall Street Journal report that the United States is sending a third aircraft carrier and up to 10,000 more troops to the Middle East.

US crude was $92.84, up 2.7%. Near-term US crude futures, in BUSO, closed up 3%.

European banks had their sharpest fall since March

A fund of European bank stocks, BPBEU, fell 3.7%, with HSBC and Santander its largest holdings. Developed-market stocks outside the United States, in BEFA, fell 1%.

French, Italian and Greek government bond yields were sharply higher. France's 10-year yield jumped to its highest since 2002 as the government prepared to unveil its 2027 budget. Germany's 10-year yield stayed near 3.65%, the highest since 2009, a level it touched earlier in the week.

European stocks closed at a three-month low, and bank shares fell 3.7%, their sharpest one-day drop since March 3.