Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on May 16, 2024.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Nasdaq 100 futures rose Wednesday night as Wall Street assessed market leader Nvidia’s latest quarterly results.
Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.4%, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%. Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 70 points, or 0.2%.
Nvidia, the semiconductor manufacturing stock and artificial intelligence (AI) darling, rose 7% in after-hours trading after reporting better-than-expected first-quarter results and announcing a 10-for-1 stock split. Snowflake rose 6% as sales beat expectations.
Nvidia’s financial results have been the focus of Wall Street attention. Traders were hoping for signs that the excitement surrounding AI is not abating. Nvidia, with a market capitalization of $2.3 trillion, has a large influence on the S&P 500 index as a whole. The company’s stock has driven the market’s rise through 2024, along with its AI and mega-cap technology peers. Wolf Research’s Chris Seniek said the better-than-expected results would be a “significant tailwind” for the overall stock market.
“In the face of high expectations, the company once again delivered,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. “The always-important data center revenue was strong and future earnings were impressive. In short, the bar was high, but they met it again.”
Stocks fell during trading on Wednesday after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s May meeting stoked fears of high inflation and that the central bank may delay cutting interest rates. The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.51%, its worst closing day of May. The S&P 500 fell 0.27% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.18%.
The final stretch of first-quarter earnings season continues on Thursday with results from Ralph Lauren, BJ’s Wholesale and Workday. On the economic front, investors await weekly jobless claims and new home sales data for April.
