Stocks edged higher Wednesday ahead of a closely watched earnings report from Nvidia.
- The S&P 500 rose 15.46 points, or 0.2% to 6,481.40 , beating the all-time high it set two weeks ago.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 147.16 points, or 0.3%, to 45,565.23.
- The Nasdaq climbed 45.87 points, or 0.2% to 21,590.14.
Cracker Barrel climbed 8% after
scrapping plans to change its logo following an uproar on social media that even drew a comment from President Trump, the
AP reports
Investors see Nvidia's quarterly report, coming after the bell, as a barometer for the strength of the boom in artificial intelligence because the company makes most of the chips that power the technology. Its heavy weighting also gives Nvidia outsized influence as a bellwether for the broader market. Its shares were flat Wednesday. "Saying this is the most important stock in the world is an understatement," says Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets. "The stock's average move after an earnings release is plus or minus 7.4%, so just an average move will make an impact on the entire market."
- Several big software companies—CrowdStrike Holdings, ServiceNow, Palo Alto Networks, Intuit, and Salesforce—rose ahead of the Nvidia results. The stocks have been mostly in the red so far this quarter amid worries that AI is going to make software creation much easier at the expense of big software companies' competitive edge.
Shares in several companies rose after they reported quarterly results that topped analysts' forecasts. Department store chain Kohl's vaulted 24% and database platform company MongoDB surged 38%. Both companies also raised their full-year guidance. JM Smucker slid 4.4% after the jelly and jam maker's latest quarterly snapshot fell short of analysts' estimates. Among other stocks that lost ground: doughnut shop chain Krispy Kreme, which fell 3.5%, and Paramount Skydance, which dropped 6.5% for the biggest decline among S&P 500 companies.
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