Wall Street stocks advanced Friday as markets digested a US Supreme Court decision striking down some of the White House’s sweeping tariffs and President Donald Trump’s response vowing new levies.The conservative-majority top court ruled six-three that a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act Trump has relied on “does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.” A furious Trump, who nominated two of the justices who repudiated him, said he was “absolutely ashamed” of some justices “for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country” and vowed to impose a uniform tariff of 10 percent under a separate authority.Wall Street stocks, which had opened lower following disappointing US economic data, pushed into positive territory and also ended higher following a choppy session. The S&P 500 ended up 0.7 percent.Some analysts said they expect the ruling to lead to lower inflation, but others described the situation as fundamentally uncertain.The market is not “surprised by what it heard from the Supreme Court and at the same time, it’s not surprised that the Trump administration is already touting its ability to make up for the lost revenue that would come from revoking the tariffs,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial, described the ruling as throwing a “pretty large wrench into the policy machine,” predicting that policy uncertainty would remain “elevated.”Jeff Buchbinder, chief equity strategist for LPL Financial, predicted Trump would likely pivot to a different legal strategy.”However, if lower tariffs help cool inflation, it could firm up expectations for Fed rate cuts later this year,” Buchbinder said in a note.In Europe, a closely watched survey on Friday showed that business activity in the eurozone accelerated in February, indicating that the region’s economy is on a more stable footing. British firms also boosted output in February, according to the purchasing managers’ index published by S&P Global.London’s FTSE 100 stock index hit a fresh record high, as did the CAC 40 in Paris.In Asia, Hong Kong fell as it reopened from a three-day break for the Lunar New Year, and Tokyo was also down. Oil prices, which surged to multi-month highs this week on US suggestions of military action against Iran, moved sideways as markets kept an eye on geopolitics.Trump had suggested on Thursday that “bad things” would happen if Tehran did not strike a deal within 10 days, which he subsequently extended to 15.Asked by a reporter on Friday whether he was contemplating a limited military strike, Trump answered: “The most I can say — I am considering it.”Also Friday, data showed the US economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the October to December period, significantly below the 2.5 percent pace that analysts had forecasted for the quarter.The period included a lengthy US government shutdown amid a budget fight between Trump and Congress.”At first glance the first reading of fourth quarter GDP was very disappointing,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management.”However, the government was shut down for almost half the quarter,” he added.- Key figures at around 2110 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 49,625.97 (close)New York – S&P: UP 0.7 percent at 6,909.51 (close)New York – Nasdaq: UP 0.9 percent at 22,886.07 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 10,686.89 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 1.4 percent at 8,515.49 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.9 percent at 25,260.69 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.1 percent at 56,825.70 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.1 percent at 26,413.35 (close)Shanghai – Composite: Closed for holidayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1788 from $1.1773 on ThursdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3487 from $1.3465Euro/pound: DOWN at 87.37 pence from 87.43 penceDollar/yen: DOWN at 155.02 yen from 155.01 yenBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.1 percent at $71.76 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.1 percent at $66.39 per barrelburs-jmb/sla

Dozens of national delegations at an artificial intelligence summit in India will issue their statement on how the world should handle the technology on Saturday, a day later than expected, the host country said.”There is huge consensus on the declaration. We are just trying to maximise the number,” India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on Friday.”The declaration and its contours will be shared transparently tomorrow,” he said, adding it had more than 70 signatories so far but he hoped the figure would cross 80.Vaishnaw declined to give details of what the statement would say as he thanked participants of this week’s event that was attended by tens of thousands of people, including world leaders and tech CEOs.The summit was the fourth annual international meeting to discuss the implications of fast-evolving AI technology, and the first hosted by a developing country.Some visitors had complained of poor organisation, including chaotic entry and exit points, at the vast summit and expo site.Police detained on Friday a group claiming to be from the youth wing of the opposition Congress party who staged a shirtless protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi inside the venue.Hot topics at the summit included the societal benefits of multilingual AI translation, the threat of job disruption and the heavy electricity consumption of data centres.But analysts said that the broad focus, and vague promises made at its previous editions in France, South Korea and Britain, would make concrete commitments unlikely.- ‘Less hype, less fear’ -The next AI summit will take place in Geneva in 2027.In the meantime, a UN panel on AI would start work towards “science-led governance”, the global body’s chief Antonio Guterres said Friday.”We are barrelling into the unknown,” he said. “The message is simple: less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence.”The UN General Assembly has confirmed 40 members for a group called the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, Guterres said.It was created in August, aiming to be to AI what the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to global environmental policy.However, the head of the US delegation warned against centralised control of generative AI, highlighting the difficulties of reaching a consensus.”As the Trump administration has now said many times: We totally reject global governance of AI,” White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios said at the Delhi summit.The United States did not sign last year’s summit statement, and it released its own bilateral declaration with India on Friday.The two countries agreed to “pursue a global approach to AI that is unapologetically friendly to entrepreneurship and innovation”.India has used the summit to push its ambition to catch up with the United States and China in the AI field, including through large-scale data centre construction, and new nuclear power plants to power them.Delhi expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, and US tech titans unveiled a raft of new deals and infrastructure projects in the country this week.Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, has called for oversight on AI in the past but said last year that taking too tight an approach could hold the United States back.”Centralisation of this technology, in one company or country, could lead to ruin,” he told the summit on Thursday.”This is not to suggest that we won’t need any regulation or safeguards. We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies.”