The markets felt pretty tense this morning as Dow Futures barely moved from yesterday’s close. The investors are holding their breath waiting for Nvidia to report its earnings and that makes sense since the numbers are expected shake up the whole market.
The indices witnessed decent gains on Wednesday, but traders aren’t getting too excited just yet. There’s still a cloud hanging over everything with all the political drama around the Fed, plus those trade policy headlines keep making the market nervous.
5 things to know before Wall Street opens
1. Everyone’s attention in the market is laser-focused on the upcoming earnings report from Nvidia, the top player in AI chips.
After a year of major hype around artificial intelligence, what Nvidia announces could either confirm that the tech rally is here to stay or throw a wrench in the whole thing.
Investors are especially interested in the company’s revenue numbers, thanks to the soaring demand from cloud companies, the automotive industry, and the fast-growing world of generative AI.
How Nvidia forecasts its future will also set the tone for the other “Magnificent Seven” stocks. Both the stock and options markets are getting ready for some serious ups and downs after the report comes out.
2. Higher US Treasury yields are back in the spotlight, and they’re creating new problems for the stock market.
Yields have been on the rise as markets get ready for a big auction of two-year Treasury notes worth $69 billion. This climb shows that investors are worried about government debt and the risk of inflation.
When yields go up, it can make people less interested in stocks by increasing borrowing costs and making highly-valued growth stocks look less appealing.
3. Intel is seeing a nice jump, about a 2% gain in premarket trading, and it’s all thanks to a big piece of news: the US government has reportedly bought a 10% stake in the company.
This move, said to be worth around $11.1 billion, is happening as part of the CHIPS Act, with Washington aiming to boost domestic manufacturing of semiconductors.
The investment from the White House is a strong signal of its commitment to strengthening supply chains and making the U.S. more competitive in technology.
4. For a while now, it’s felt like the entire stock market has been all about a few huge tech companies—the usual suspects like Nvidia, Alphabet, and Tesla. They were the ones making all the big moves. But over the last week or so, we’ve started to see a different group of stocks take the lead.
The ones doing really well now are the “cyclical” stocks, companies whose success is tied to a healthy economy, like transport and manufacturing, along with a bunch of smaller companies.
5. A lot of the uncertainty is coming from politics and global events. We’re seeing traders react to the news about potential US tariffs and all the noise around President Trump’s relationship with the Federal Reserve.
All of that makes it harder to guess what’s going to happen with interest rates and global trade.
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