Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures rise in countdown to Nvidia earnings
US stock futures climbed on Wednesday as Wall Street awaited Nvidia (NVDA) earnings, looking for a strong signal on AI demand to provide some relief from ongoing inflation concerns.
S&P 500 futures (ES=F) moved up 0.3%, while those on the Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) jumped roughly 0.7%. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F) , which includes fewer tech stocks, nudged up 0.1%. On Tuesday, stocks declined as techs pulled back and Treasury yields surged.
Investors are counting down to the release of quarterly results from Nvidia, a catalyst for stocks more broadly in the past. While shares in the world’s most valuable company have continued to rise this year, chipmaker rivals are closing in. Markets are pricing in a move of about 5.5% for Nvidia shares in either direction following the results, per Bloomberg.
Investors are looking to the results to gauge whether AI demand will continue to boom, given the chipmaker is a linchpin of the industry. The focus is on clues to whether Big Tech is still spending massively on AI buildouts .
That AI trade has buoyed markets worried about geopolitical uncertainty and persistent price pressures. Concerns that sticky inflation will force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates have dampened interest in growth stocks, including AI, as US bond yields surged to levels not seen in almost two decades.
The Iran war — a major driver of rising prices — continues with no end in sight. President Trump threatened to attack the Middle Eastern country in the coming days if a peace deal isn’t reached soon and again asserted the war with Iran will end “very quickly”.
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