Major US exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq 100, fully closed equity and options markets Thursday to observe a National Day of Mourning in honor of former US President Jimmy Carter.

* The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's December manufacturing index was revised up to minus 10.9 from minus 16.4 and followed a revised minus 4.4 in November, annual data released Thursday showed. The January Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index is due Jan. 16.

* Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said companies planned to cut 38,792 jobs in December, down from 57,727 in November but up from 34,817 a year ago.

* February West Texas Intermediate crude oil closed up $0.87 to settle at $74.19 per barrel, while March Brent crude, the global benchmark, was last seen up $0.99 to $77.15 on tight supply and declining U.S. inventories.

* The Dutch government said it is discussing with Nvidia (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) setting up an artificial intelligence facility in the Netherlands.

* Super Micro Computer (SMCI) began volume shipments of new high-performance servers equipped with Intel's (INTC) Xeon 6900 series processors.

This comes as the outgoing President Joe Biden's administration plans one more round of restrictions on the export of artificial intelligence chips, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.