Nvidia May Lead Early Upward Move On Wall Street

After ending yesterday’s lackluster session modestly higher, stocks are likely to see further upside in early trading on Wednesday. The major index futures are currently pointing to a higher open for the markets, with the S&P 500 futures up by 0.4 percent.

Nvidia (NVDA) may help lead the markets higher, as the artificial intelligence chipmaker is jumping by 1.9 percent in pre-market trading.

The advance by Nvidia comes after the company announced a multi-year, multi-generational strategic partnership with Facebook parent Meta (META) spanning on-premises, cloud and AI infrastructure.

The company said the partnership will enable the large-scale deployment of Nvidia CPUs and millions of Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin GPUs.

Fellow “Magnificent Seven” member Amazon (AMZN) is also likely to see early strength following news Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square increased its stake in the online retail giant by 65 percent during the fourth quarter.

Overall trading activity may be somewhat subdued, however, as traders look ahead to this afternoon’s release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy meeting.

The minutes of the Fed’s late January meeting, when the central bank decided to leave interest rates unchanged, may shed additional light on the outlook for rates.

Shortly before the start of trading, the Federal Reserve is due to release its report on industrial production in the month of January. Industrial production is expected to climb by 0.4 percent in January, matching the increase seen in December.

After recovering from an early move to the downside, stocks turned in a relatively lackluster performance over the course of the trading session on Tuesday. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing modestly higher.

The Dow inched up 32.26 points or 0.1 percent to 49,533.19, the Nasdaq edged up 31.71 points or 0.1 percent to 22,578.38 and the S&P 500 crept up 7.05 points or 0.1 percent to 6,843.22.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher on Wednesday, with several markets still closed for holidays. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index jumped by 1.0 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index climbed by 0.5 percent.

The major European markets have also moved to the upside on the day. While the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index is up by 1.0 percent, the German DAX Index is up by 0.8 percent and the French CAC 40 Index is up by 0.3 percent.

In commodities trading, crude oil futures are surging $1.59 to $63.92 a barrel after sliding $0.56 to $62.33 a barrel on Tuesday. Meanwhile, an ounce of gold is trading at $4,980.10, up $74.20 compared to the previous session’s close of $4,905.90. On Tuesday, gold plunged $140.40.

On the currency front, the U.S. dollar is trading at 153.79 yen compared to the 153.28 yen it fetched at the close of New York trading on Tuesday. Against the euro, the dollar is valued at $1.1831 compared to yesterday’s $1.1853.