Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq rally as Nvidia earnings revive AI optimism, software stocks roar back
US stocks climbed on Thursday after earnings from Nvidia (NVDA), Salesforce (CRM), and CrowdStrike (CRWD) lifted the tech trade and investors awaited the Fed’s Jackson Hole gathering.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) advanced 0.2%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained 0.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose 1.5%, building on Wednesday’s gains.
Nvidia (NVDA) stock leaped 8% higher after the company reported an earnings beat and signaled strong AI demand throughout next year, easing concerns that the AI chip king wouldn’t be able to sustain its torrid pace of growth.
On Wednesday night, the Information reported that Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face, an open-source model repository, for $12.9 billion. The reported move comes after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang touted the company’s ballooning AI investments, saying, “the only regret that I have is that I didn’t invest more and sooner” in AI labs.
With the AI bellwether’s report in the rearview mirror, the focus now turns to the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Symposium, where central bank officials will debate the path of interest rate policy. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh is expected to deliver a speech on Friday, though his message is anyone’s guess.
Bond yields have stabilized after spiking last week as investors continue to weigh Treasury’s intervention in the bond market and the likelihood that the Fed would hold rates steady. On the economic front, data on jobless claims ticked down to 203,000 in a positive sign for the labor market.
Investors also got a glimpse of consumer trends when Dollar General (DG) and Dollar Tree (DLTR) reported earnings. The two discount retailers reported better-than-expected earnings as they have attracted higher-income shoppers, but their stocks diverged due to differences in outlooks.
