The tension in the Middle East continues, and the market is waiting for the release of the US non-farm payroll data. The three major US stock indices continued their weakness on Thursday, with the Dow falling by a maximum of 348 points to a low of 41,847 points, closing down by 184 points or 0.4% at 42,011 points.

The s&p 500 index closed down 9 points or 0.2% at 5,699 points; the Nasdaq stabilized with the support of Nvidia (NVDA.US), ending the day slightly down by 6 points at 17,918 points.

Nvidia rose 3.3% throughout the day against the market, with CEO Jensen Huang stating that demand for the new Blackwell chip is quite strong. Apple (AAPL.US) fell by 0.5%, reportedly due to CEO Cook's shareholding of over 0.22 million shares of Apple stock. Tesla (TSLA.US) fell by 3.4%.

Levi Strauss (LEVI.US) reported lower revenue for the last quarter and plans to sell its Dockers brand business, causing a 7.7% drop in stock price.

Chinese concept stocks weakened, with Alibaba (BABA.US) falling by 2.1%, Baidu (BIDU.US) dropping over 5%, and Bilibili (BILI.US) plunging by 8.8%.