Stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors held their positions ahead of Nvidia’s earnings release, which many see as a decisive moment for the bull market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 25 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both slipped 0.1%.
Gains were also capped as long-term Treasury yields pushed higher, with markets weighing President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates.
Traders also largely brushed off Trump’s unprecedented decision to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook from the central bank’s board.
US equities ended Tuesday mostly flat, continuing a muted stretch of trading.
Amid the subdued backdrop, several individual stocks delivered standout performances.
MongoDB surged 31% after the developer data platform reported results that topped Wall Street forecasts.
Okta climbed 4% after issuing both quarterly numbers and a full-year outlook that exceeded expectations.
Both companies pointed to demand from firms building artificial intelligence platforms as a key driver of growth.
That momentum has added to anticipation around Nvidia, which reports after the market close on Wednesday.
With the largest weighting in the S&P 500 and a central role in the AI boom, the chipmaker is viewed as a bellwether for the broader market.
Its results could set the tone for the next leg of this year’s rally, especially as the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants look to rebound from last week’s sell-off.
Nvidia has outpaced analyst expectations in 11 of its last 12 earnings reports, but the stock has posted declines following results on four of those occasions, according to FactSet.
Investors will be watching closely to see whether this time proves different.
Nvidia results later today
Nvidia’s upcoming fiscal second-quarter earnings report, due Wednesday, will mark two years of sustained growth as the company has transformed from a gaming chip maker into a dominant force at the core of the global technology industry.
The milestone comes just weeks after Nvidia became the first company to reach a $4 trillion market capitalisation, extending its meteoric rise.
Since the end of 2022, around the time OpenAI released ChatGPT and ignited the generative AI boom, Nvidia’s stock has soared twelvefold.
Shares are up 33% so far this year.
Even at this scale, growth remains strong, though it has cooled from the extraordinary pace of recent years.
After five consecutive quarters of triple-digit revenue expansion in 2023 and 2024, growth slowed to 69% in the first quarter.
Wall Street expects Nvidia to post a 53% year-over-year increase to $45.9 billion in second-quarter revenue, according to LSEG consensus estimates.
The company’s reliance on AI is evident in its earnings mix.
Data centre revenue made up 88% of total sales in the first quarter, underscoring how central AI workloads have become to Nvidia’s business.
Last year, 34% of total sales came from just three customers, which analysts widely believe to be Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta—tech giants leading the race to build and scale AI infrastructure.
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