A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on March 5, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Stocks rose Wednesday, with the S&P 500 trying to snap a four-day losing streak, as investors awaited earnings from market bellwether Nvidia.
The S&P 500 traded 0.2% higher, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.3%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, slipping 21 points, or less than 0.1%.
Stocks are coming off a weak session. The S&P 500 tumbled 0.5%, and the Nasdaq lost nearly 1.4%. Both benchmarks logged their fourth consecutive losing day. The 30-stock Dow was the outlier, with a roughly 0.4% advance.
A weaker-than-expected consumer confidence reading from the Conference Board weighed on stocks Tuesday. A raft of recent reports, including disappointing retail sales numbers and a weak consumer sentiment reading have spurred traders’ worries around the economy over the past week — and the major averages have suffered.
Nvidia’s fourth-quarter earnings, due after the closing bell Wednesday, could be the next catalyst for the market. The stock climbed more than 2% Wednesday.
The report arrives at a pivotal time for chipmaking giant. The emergence of DeepSeek raised questions about the sustainability of the once-hot artificial intelligence trade. The chip giant and other momentum plays are also showing signs of fizzling, with Nvidia down 2% in 2025.
“I think as the earnings report comes out tomorrow, my expectation is it’s going to be a lot like September,” NYU Stern School of Business finance professor Aswath Damodaran said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
“A replay of [the] September [quarter] where they will beat analyst expectations, but the market is going to be disappointed because the market seems to have set expectations higher than what analysts are seeing for the company,” he added.
Economic data due on Wednesday include new home sales and building permits. The main event for investors will be the release of the personal consumption expenditures price index on Friday. The PCE is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.
