Wall Street rose in early trading Wednesday as markets turned their attention away from stocks State of the Union for President Donald Trump A speech towards the latest earnings report from artificial intelligence chip maker Nvidia.
S futures contracts&The P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both rose 0.3% before the opening bell, while Nasdaq futures rose 0.5%.
In his speech Tuesday evening, Trump focused on jobs, manufacturing and the economy, which he says is stronger than he is Many Americans believe. He did not dwell on efforts to lower the cost of living — although polls have shown that his handling of the economy and kitchen table issues has become increasingly a liability.
Investors are closely watching the earnings report scheduled for later today from the chip industry Giant Nvidia. The quarterly report is likely to weigh on a jittery stock market as investors weigh whether huge bets riding on the latest technology craze will pay off.
As has been the case since Nvidia’s chips emerged as the best building blocks for artificial intelligence, expectations are very high for the company’s fiscal quarter results, which cover November through January.
In early stock trading on Wednesday, First Solar shares fell 16.5% after falling short of fourth-quarter earnings expectations and issuing tepid 2026 sales guidance.
Cava shares jumped 11% in pre-market trading after the Mediterranean fast food chain beat Wall Street’s sales and profit targets and gave strong expectations for the current year. Rising prices and a surge in same-store sales have boosted the company’s recent results.
In Europe at midday, the French CAC 40 and the German DAX added 0.4%, while the British FTSE 100 index jumped 0.9%.
The Japanese index briefly hit a record high, as investors cheered Wall Street’s overnight rise driven by optimism about the artificial intelligence boom. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index rose 2.2% to close at 58,583.12 points.
Stocks also rose in China. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong rose 0.7% to 26,765.72 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.7% to 4,147.23 points. South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.9% to 6,083.86, as the index continued to benefit from global demand for computer chips.
In Taiwan, the Taiex index jumped 2.1% as shares of TSMC, the world’s largest contract maker of computer chips, rose 2.5%. Australia S&The P/ASX 200 index jumped 1.2% to 9,128.30.
In energy trading early Wednesday, the price of benchmark U.S. crude oil added 58 cents to $66.21 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 71 cents to $71.29 a barrel.
The US dollar rebounded to 156.76 Japanese yen from 155.91 yen. The price of the euro reached $1.1786, up from $1.1774.
Gold rose less than 1% while silver rose 3.1% to more than $90 an ounce.
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Yuri Kageyama is in the topics: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama