WILLEMSTAD, Curaçao (AP) — World Cup debutant Curaçao parted company with coach Fred Rutten on Monday amid reports Dutch veteran Dick Advocaat is returning to the team he led through qualifying.
The uncertainty around the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for a men's World Cup comes less than five weeks before a testing opening game against Germany in Houston.
Rutten took the job in February after the 78-year-old Advocaat stepped down citing his daughter’s health issues.
Under Rutten, the team lost two warmup games in March — against Australia and China, both in Australia — with players reportedly wanting Advocaat back.
“I regret how things unfolded but I wish everyone the best,” Rutten said in a statement posted by the Curaçao soccer federation. He previously coached Dutch clubs Twente, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord, and Schalke in Germany.
The federation is expected to hold a news conference on Tuesday.
Curaçao is joined by Ghana, Morocco and Saudi Arabia in changing coaches since the World Cup draw in December.
Curaçao is an autonomous territory of about 156,000 people in the Caribbean within the Netherlands kingdom. The team relies almost entirely on players born and raised in the Netherlands.
The team also will play Ecuador in Kansas City and Ivory Coast in Philadelphia at the first 48-team World Cup. The expanded format gave three extra guaranteed entries to CONCACAF.
Advocaat took his native Netherlands to the quarterfinals at the previous World Cup in the United States, in 1994, and coached South Korea at the 2006 edition in Germany.
AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
FILE - Curacao players pose for a team photo ahead of their international soccer friendly against Australia in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is rising toward more records Thursday after Cisco Systems and others joined the parade of U.S. companies reporting fatter profits for the start of 2026 than analysts expected.
The S&P 500 added 0.5% to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 254 points, or 0.5%, and is close to finishing a day above the 50,000 level for the first time since the war with Iran began. The Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher and adding to its own record, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Cisco helped lead the market after jumping 14.6% in what could be its best day in nearly 15 years. The tech giant reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, and CEO Chuck Robbins said it saw “very strong, broad-based demand for our products.”
Big Tech behemoths in particular are pouring cash into artificial-intelligence technology, and Cisco gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that easily topped analysts' expectations.
Such voracious demand for AI, and the big profits it's producing, have been major reasons the U.S. stock market has set records throughout this year. Cerebras Systems, an AI processor company, raised $5.55 billion after selling its stock in an initial public offering, and its shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq later in the day.
Corporate earnings reported so far this season have “reinforced that this is still an AI-led market, but one where the impact is broadening quickly,” according to Gargi Pal Chaudhuri, chief investment and portfolio strategist at BlackRock.
“What started with a handful of companies is now driving earnings growth across semiconductors, infrastructure, and even parts of the industrial economy,” she said.
Outside of AI, other stocks rallying after delivering better-than-expected profit reports included StubHub Holdings, up 19.3%, and Viking Holdings, up 10%.
Both companies sell products that aren’t day-to-day essentials, such as concert tickets and river cruises. Strong results from them could be an indicator that customers are still willing to spend even though U.S. consumers have been telling surveys they're feeling discouraged about the economy.
Whether U.S. households will keep spending and support the economy is a big question for Wall Street because pressure has been rising on them due to high oil prices and inflation created by the Iran war. A report released Thursday said that shoppers overall spent less at U.S. retailers last month than economists expected. But the deceleration after factoring out gasoline and automobile sales wasn’t quite as bad as economists thought it would be.
A separate report, meanwhile, said more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, which could be an indication of more layoffs. The number, though, remains relatively low compared with history.
Treasury yields zigzagged in the bond market following the reports, but they largely remained steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.45% from 4.46% late Wednesday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1%, while South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.8% to another record thanks to AI-related stocks.
Stocks were nearly flat in Hong Kong and down 1.5% in Shanghai as Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing.
Some investors hope Trump could encourage Xi to use China’s close economic ties with Iran to get it to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The strait’s closure because of the war has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide, which has driven up crude prices.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, fell 0.1% to $105.54 Thursday, but it remains well above its price of roughly $70 from before the war.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
Trader Michael Capolino works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Patrick Casey works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
U.S. President Donald Trump, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (Maxim Shemetov/Pool Photo via AP)
Asia markets index of Japan, South Korea and Australia is seen on a screen at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
