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By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks drifted around their records in a mixed day of trading Wednesday.

The S&P 500 added 0.1% and neared its all-time high set a couple weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 327 points, or 0.7%, to set a record for the second straight day, while the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.3%.

Advanced Micro Devices was at the front of the market. It rallied 9% after CEO Lisa Su said the chip company is expecting better than 35% of annual compounded revenue growth over the next three to five years. She credited “accelerating AI momentum.”

Stocks benefiting from the artificial-intelligence frenzy have been shaky recently, as investors question whether how much more they can add to already spectacular gains.

Their sensational performances have been one of the top reasons the U.S. market has hit records despite a slowing job market and high inflation. Their prices have shot so high, though, that critics say they’re reminiscent of the 2000 dot-com bubble, which ultimately burst and dragged the S&P 500 down by nearly half. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, will retire at the end of his current term in February, opening up a new seat on the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee at a time that President Donald Trump is seeking to exert more control over the central bank.

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As president of one of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, Bostic, 59, serves on the 19-member committee that meets eight times a year to decide whether to change a key short-term interest rate that influences borrowing costs throughout the economy. Only 12 of the 19 participants vote on rates at each meeting. The regional Fed presidents rotate as voters, and the Atlanta Fed’s president will next vote in 2027. read more

By Natalie Todoroff, Bankrate.com

When Jessye Kass Karlin asked for a raise, she didn’t just need one person to say “yes.” She needed eight.

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A director of programs at a women’s shelter in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Karlin was in her mid-20s, making around $60,000 per year. She sought a $20,000 salary increase and a new title: executive director. “I sort of had that role already but didn’t have the title or pay to honor the work that I was doing,” she tells me.

Karlin felt she was doing everything right, and then some. Before, the shelter had no formalized volunteer prep, so she created trainings focused on de-escalation tactics and dealing with trauma, as well as an official eight-hour onboarding process. During her tenure, Karlin also increased volunteer retention by almost 80% and boosted the shelter’s revenue. read more

By KEN SWEET, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Visa and Mastercard have proposed a settlement in their long-running legal dispute with merchants and retailers over how much they charge merchants to accept their cards.

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The most important part of the settlement could directly impact how customers use their Visa- and Mastercard-issued credit cards, and may result in some consumers getting denied at the point-of-sale for purchases

Visa and Mastercard have been in litigation with a class-action group of merchants for nearly 20 years over the costs they impose on merchants to use their payment networks, known as interchange. A previous settlement was rejected by the judge overseeing the case last this year, requiring Visa and Mastercard’s lawyers to go back to the drawing board on the scope and size of the settlement. read more

By CHAN HO-HIM

BANGKOK (AP) — Apple said it has pulled two of China’s biggest gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, under pressure from Chinese authorities, in the latest sign of a tightening grip on the LGBTQ+ community.

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An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company removed the two dating apps from China “based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China”, without further elaborating.

“We follow the laws in the countries where we operate,” the spokesperson told The Associated Press.

A check by The Associated Press on Tuesday found that the two apps are not available on Apple’s app store in China, although an “express” version of Blued could still be found. It was unclear what the difference is between the full and express versions or if an Android version might be available. read more