Stock market today: Nvidia helps pull US indexes higher

AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Nvidia helped pulled U.S. stock indexes higher on Tuesday after they stumbled in the morning on worries about escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% after erasing an early drop of 0.7%. The Nasdaq composite also shook off an early loss to turn 1% higher, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 120 points, or 0.3%.

Nvidia’s 4.9% climb accounted for the vast majority of the index’s gain. The chip company’s stock rallied ahead of its profit report for the latest quarter, which is coming on Wednesday, and vaulted its gain for the year to nearly 197% thanks to the craze around artificial-intelligence technology.

Activity in the options market suggests Nvidia’s profit report may be the most anticipated event on Wall Street for the rest of the year, beating out the upcoming jobs report and even the next meeting of the Federal Reserve on interest rates, according to strategists at Barclays Capital.

It’s “a testament to the outsized impact of AI, and the apparent resurgence of upside chasing by” smaller-pocketed, everyday investors known as retail traders, according to Barclays’ Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.

Nvidia’s rise helped calm the stock market, even as indexes sank across Europe after Russia said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at it. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons. Both France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX fell 0.7%.

The worries also sent investors into U.S. Treasury bonds, which are seen as some of the world’s safest investments. The rise in their prices in turn lowered their yields, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.39% from 4.41% late Monday.

Gold also rose 0.6% and recovered some of the losses it sustained following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, as investors herded into places traditionally considered safer during times of trouble.

Early in the day, such cautiousness overshadowed optimism coming from reports by big U.S. retailers showing fatter profits for the summer than analysts expected.

Walmart climbed 3% after topping forecasts for both profit and revenue. The nation’s biggest retailer said it saw broad-based strength across its categories, including sales made both online and in stores. It also said it served more upper-income households, while raising its forecasts for sales and profit for the full year.

Lowe’s likewise delivered bigger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but its stock nevertheless dropped 4.6%. A report in the morning said construction crews broke ground on fewer new homes last month than economists expected, and rival Home Depot slipped 0.9%.

Other big companies set to report their latest quarterly results this week include Target on Wednesday and Deere on Thursday.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Super Micro Computer jumped 31.2% after it filed a plan to keep its stock listed on Nasdaq’s exchange. It hired an independent auditor, BDO USA, which can help it file financial statements needed in order to comply with Nasdaq’s listing requirements.

The company’s stock has been on a wild ride. It more than quadrupled in the first two and a half months of this year because the company makes servers used in AI. But it gave up all that and more, with losses accelerating after Ernst & Young resigned as its public accounting firm. A special committee of the company’s board later said that a three-month investigation found “no evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of management or the Board of Directors.”

Berry Global Group fell 1.3% after Amcor said it would buy the maker of prescription vials, bags and other products in an all-stock deal. Amcor dropped 2.6%.

Incyte sank 8.3% after the biopharmaceutical company said it’s pausing enrollment in its ongoing study of a potential treatment for hives in chronic spontaneous urticaria. It also said data from another study evaluating a potential treatment for cholestatic pruritus does not support further development.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 23.36 points to 5,916.98. The Dow dropped 120.66 to 43,268.94, and the Nasdaq composite rose 195.66 to 18,987.47.

In stock markets abroad, indexes in Asia were more stable than in Europe. They rose 0.7% in Shanghai and 0.4% in Hong Kong, rebounding from early losses.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.