Stock market today: Live updates

U.S. equity futures rose on Wednesday, supported by Nvidia and Oracle, as stocks look to build on the gains from the prior trading day.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 150 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures added 0.3%, and Nasdaq 100 futures traded up about 0.4%.

Shares of Nvidia were up nearly 1% in early trading ahead of its earnings report, which is scheduled to be released after the bell along with results from software giant Salesforce and Snowflake, due after Wednesday’s market close. Nvidia’s report comes at a time when investors are recalibrating lofty tech stock valuations and growing skeptical on hyperscalers’ high AI capital expenditures.

“Whether such market confidence can be sustained in the coming days will partly depend on NVIDIA’s earnings,” wrote Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, head chief investment officer for global equities, in a note. “With hyperscalers having announced another step-up in capex in recent weeks, markets expect the chipmaker to forecast revenue above consensus estimates alongside strong sales growth.”

Fellow artificial intelligence player Oracle jumped more than 2%, leading the continued bounce in software stocks, after the name was upgraded at Oppenheimer, which sees a “favorable” risk-reward profile in the wake of its recent pullback.

The software sector extended its run from the previous session, when the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) rose about 2%. The fund was marginally higher in Wednesday’s premarket, as stocks such as Palantir Technologies and Microsoft climbed. That’s even as Workday sank 9% after the company issued a soft revenue forecast.

On Tuesday, the major stock averages advanced as fears about AI disruption across several industries dissipated. Advanced Micro Devices lifted the broader market after Meta Platforms announced a multiyear deal with the semiconductor company.

Software and cybersecurity stocks also saw a relief rally in the regular session after Anthropic launched a new connectors and plugins for its knowledge worker tool, Claude Cowork, that will allow companies to connect the AI tool to their existing apps such as Google Drive. Claude Cowork rattled the software sector in recent weeks as investors feared the tool would disrupt incumbent software vendors’ businesses.

Separately, investors this week are keeping an eye on tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Over the past weekend, President Donald Trump had threatened to hike global tariffs to 15%, but a 10% duty on global imports was implemented on Tuesday.

The president gave his State of the Union address Tuesday evening, where he talked up the state of the economy. He also announced a proposal to offer workers access to a government-backed retirement account and once again called for banning large institutional investors from buying single-family homes.