US stocks edged higher in choppy trading on Wednesday, in a session characterised by anticipation ahead of a high-stakes Nvidia earnings alongside nerves about the state of the US employment market.
The Nasdaq Composite rose as much as 1.7 per cent in early trading on Wednesday morning, but fell back later in the day following the announcement that crucial US employment data for October would not be released as expected.
By early afternoon in New York, the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 were both 0.1 per cent higher.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, responsible for the closely watched jobs data that traders use to gauge US interest rate expectations, said on Wednesday that it would not publish its October employment report this week as planned, because of the recent US federal government shutdown hampering data collection.
Nvidia was up close to 2 per cent ahead of its third-quarter results, due to be published after the market closes. Investors are preparing for a share price swing worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the stock of a company at the centre of this year’s artificial intelligence-powered rally on Wall Street.
Guy Miller, chief market strategist at insurer Zurich, said recent volatility in tech stocks was “healthy, following a period of complacency”.
However, Miller warned that Nvidia results on Wednesday evening would be a “binary event” for markets, “with the largest company in the world likely determining the fate of markets into year end”.
Big tech stocks, which have pulled back sharply in recent weeks amid concerns over elevated valuations and the vast scale of corporate investment being poured into AI infrastructure, recovered some of their recent losses.
Google parent Alphabet’s share price jumped 3 per cent by early afternoon. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed a $4.3bn stake in the company last week, in filings that offer a snapshot of positions at the end of September.
Broadcom climbed 2.2 per cent and ON Semiconductor Corp rose 2.9 per cent.
“The understandable fear is that this is a very crowded trade and that a casual walk to the exit could turn into something less orderly should cause be found,” said Chris Turner, head of markets research at ING. “Hence the intense interest in [Wednesday’s] release of third-quarter results for Nvidia.”
Across the Atlantic, the Stoxx Europe 600 closed flat after shaking off early losses. Germany’s Dax index fell 0.1 per cent, while France’s Cac 40 dropped 0.2 per cent. In the UK, the FTSE 100 fell 0.5 per cent.
The dollar rose 0.6 per cent against a basket of other currencies, including the pound and the euro.
