(Image credit: Getty Images)
Stocks opened higher Wednesday and stayed there through the close. Impressive gains for mega-cap tech stocks ahead of tonight’s key earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA) boosted the main indexes, while a big rally in bitcoin underscored the risk-on session.
At the close, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.6% at 49,482, the broader S&P 500 was 0.8% higher at 6,946 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had gained 1.3% to 23,152.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, jumped 7.7% to $69,200 – its highest level in over a week – lifting shares of crypto-related stocks Coinbase Global (COIN, +13.5%) and Robinhood Markets (HOOD, +5.6%).
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more – straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice – straight to your e-mail.
But it was the tech sector that drew the most attention today as Wall Street looked ahead to today’s after-the-close release of Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter results.
Why are Nvidia earnings so important?
As we have mentioned several times, Nvidia earnings have become a must-watch event on Wall Street. The blue chip stock gained 1.4% today, bringing its market capitalization to $4.76 trillion.
“Not only is Nvidia the largest company on Earth by market cap, but it also provides the most critical and necessary technology to the AI revolution – the coveted graphics processing units (GPUs),” explains Andrew Rocco, stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research.
And beyond its massive size and “necessity in the supply chain,” the strategist says that Nvidia earnings are so important because the report “will provide clues into the health of AI spending in general and … about the health of its business partners,” including CoreWeave (CRWV) and Nebius Group (NBIS).
Looking for more timely stock market news to help gauge the health of your portfolio? Sign up for Closing Bell, our free newsletter that’s delivered straight to your inbox at the close of each trading day.
But even more important than the chipmaker’s results is its guidance, says Luke Rahbari, co-portfolio manager of the Rational Equity Armor Fund (HDCAX).
“The guidance has to mention that they’re seeing strong demand across the board — not just in one area, but across the board — and that they expect year-to-year growth to continue the way it has been,” says Rahbari.
You can get the latest updates and follow along with this evening’s earnings call on our live Nvidia blog.
In other earnings news
While Nvidia’s results are the highlight of this week’s earnings calendar, there were several notable reports Wall Street parsed through today.
Axon Enterprise (AXON), for one, surged 17.6% – sending the industrial stock to the top of the S&P 500 – after the Taser maker turned artificial intelligence safety solutions expert reported higher-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and revenue. The company also updated its three-year outlook to reflect its strong outperformance.
“Impressively, momentum is strong across key customer segments, including state and local, international, and now even enterprise is contributing to bookings,” says Needham analyst Joshua Reilly.
Lowe’s (LOW) also reported top- and bottom-line beats for its fourth quarter, but shares fell 5.6% after the home improvement retailer’s full-year earnings-per-share forecast came up short.
Despite lower short-term interest rates and expectations for more easing from the Federal Reserve, “mortgage rates remain elevated,” said Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison in the earnings call. “As a result, a persistent lock-in effect remains in place, keeping housing turnover and new home starts under pressure, leading us to expect improvement in both the housing and home improvement markets to be gradual.”
Buy the dip on beaten-down Oracle, says Oppenheimer
In non-earnings news, Oracle (ORCL) rose 1.2% after Oppenheimer analyst Brian Schwartz upgraded the beaten-down software stock to Outperform from Perform, the equivalents of Buy and Hold, respectively. He also set a price target of $185, representing implied upside of 23% to current levels.
“While our call may be early, since it will take time for Oracle to show financial success as a more capital-intensive business in future results, we see a favorable risk/reward” setup following the stock’s 50% slide since September.
Schwartz says the upgrade is based on the belief Oracle will see strong earnings-per-share growth over the next several years, its efforts to mitigate financial and execution risks and its position as an AI winner.
