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 0.4%, while those on the Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) jumped 0.7%. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM=F) , which includes fewer tech stocks, edged up 0.2%. 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 .
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. Minutes of the Fed’s April meeting set for release Wednesday will reveal the depth of the differences among policymakers on the path of rates.
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”.
Elsewhere on the earnings front, Target’s (TGT) results highlight a flurry of reports from retailers on Wednesday, watched for signs of stress as energy price hikes strain wallets.
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Target CEO on earnings blowout: We saw broad-based strength in consumers
Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi reports:
Somehow, Target (TGT) defied US consumer trends in the first quarter.
Gas price spikes across the country have hammered shoppers’ wallets and driven inflation higher. Consumer sentiment has plunged, while interest rate cut expectations have dropped.
One would have thought Target — with its well-documented operating struggles in 2025 — would have reported a horrid first quarter.
Instead, it reported a $0.28 earnings beat on Wednesday. Sales increased in all merchandise departments, led by beauty, hardlines, and food. Store traffic increased.
The company even jacked up its full-year sales outlook and said it expects sales to increase in each quarter of the year.
“No doubt there’s a lot to pay attention to there [with consumers], because the consumer’s got headwinds and some tailwinds, and so we’re paying a ton of attention to how consumers are finding value on our site and on our shelves, and some of the changes that we’ve made are with that in mind. Now, for us, it will always be about being sharp on price,” Target CEO Michael Fiddelke told Yahoo Finance.
Customers shop at a Target store on Feb. 10, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) · Scott Olson via Getty Images -
