The stock market began Wednesday’s session hovering around breakeven as Nvidia’s big earnings report loomed later in the afternoon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 100 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 was hovering around breakeven. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.2%.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury note was up to 3.66%, while the 10-year yield was up to 4.29%.
Nvidia, the largest U.S. company by market capitalization, is set to report quarterly results after the market closes. The firm’s sheer size and its central positioning in the artificial intelligence trend mean the firm’s trajectory has major implications for the stock market rally.
Sevens Report Research’s Tom Essaye notes that large tech firms are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure.
“Essentially, this AI infrastructure buildout is acting like a mini-government stimulus program!” Essaye writes. “And it’s not just benefiting the chipmakers. It’s also benefiting utilities (data centers need power), networking, construction, cooling, transportation, etc.”
The S&P’s rebound from its lows on Tuesday kept the index from starting its second losing streak of August, writes Frank Cappelleri, founder of technical analysis firm CappThesis.
“And while breadth wasn’t overly impressive, the index managed to have 52% of its components tick higher yesterday,” Cappelleri writes. “That’s now four positive breadth days in the last six dating back to 8/19.”