Wall Street Rises, All Eyes on Nvidia
US stocks rallied on Wednesday (February 25th) ahead of Nvidia's earnings release, which is expected to provide fresh clues about the strength and sustainability of demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Futures contracts tracking the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq 100 rose around 0.5%, reflecting improving market sentiment ahead of key technology sector catalysts.
Nvidia shares rose around 1%, following gains in other chip stocks, as the company is seen as a "barometer" for AI infrastructure spending by tech giants Mag 7. The market believes Nvidia's performance growth is still likely to improve, making this report a potential benchmark for assessing the strength of orders and capital expenditure (capex) in the AI data center ecosystem.
Meanwhile, AMD also rallied around 1%, continuing its rally after surging 9% on Tuesday. AMD's gains were fueled by news of a multi-year deal with Meta, which will deploy up to 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs in AI-focused data centers. This development reinforces the belief that AI spending remains aggressive, not concentrated in a single player.
Meanwhile, software stocks maintained their rebound as investors began to reassess earlier concerns about "AI disruption" to traditional software services business models.
On the policy front, President Donald Trump's tone in his State of the Union address did not signal that a blanket tariff increase across all countries would be prioritized soon, after the US Supreme Court invalidated the IEEPA's use of its authority—bringing market focus temporarily back to Nvidia's report as a key indicator of the direction of sentiment.
Source: Newsmaker.id
