NEW YORK, May 23 — Futures tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 climbed today, driven by a rally in chip stocks after Nvidia’s upbeat revenue forecast cemented investor optimism around the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence technology.
The AI chip leader’s stock jumped 7.2 per cent in premarket trading, on track to open above the US$1,000 (RM4,704) mark for the first time ever and add about US$165 billion in market value if gains hold.
“Nvidia’s earnings supported our expectations that the AI rally has plenty of more room to run... We stay positive on the AI trend and maintain our preference for big tech given the advantageous market positions,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.
The semiconductor bellwether also announced a stock split, following an over 90 per cent surge in its shares this year and a threefold jump in 2023 that have made Nvidia the third-most valuable US stock.
The response to Nvidia’s widely anticipated results contrasts the muted, range-bound trading on Wall Street in the days leading up to the release, underscoring the company’s growing significance.
Its results boosted other chip stocks as well, with Advanced Micro Devices, Micron Technology, Broadcom and Arm Holdings advancing between 2.1 per cent and 3.7 per cent.
AI-related stocks such as Super Micro Computer, C3.ai, Palantir Technologies and SoundHound AI also gained between 1.5 per cent and 5.3 per cent.
Meanwhile, Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on Wednesday as investors digested minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting. Rate-setters indicated they still had faith price pressures would ease at least slowly in coming months, but doubts emerged about whether the current level of interest rates was high enough to ensure that outcome.
Traders currently expect the US central bank to reduce its interest rates by nearly 40 basis points by year-end.
Markets are also eyeing economic data scheduled through the day including weekly jobless claims, S&P Global flash PMIs and housing figures.
At 7:14 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 35 points, or 0.09 per cent, S&P 500 e-minis were up 31.5 points, or 0.59 per cent, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 190 points, or 1.01 per cent.
The CBOE Volatility Index, also known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, hit its lowest levels since November 2019.
Among other premarket movers, data cloud analytics firm Snowflake advanced 4 per cent after forecasting second-quarter product revenue above estimates and raising its annual expectations.
DuPont climbed 5 per cent on the US conglomerate’s plans to split into three publicly traded companies.
US-listed shares of Taiwanese contract chipmaker TSMC rose 2.4 per cent after forecasting an annual revenue growth of 10 per cent in the global semiconductor industry, excluding memory chips.
Shares of Ticketmaster owner Live Nation dropped 7 per cent after a report that the US Department of Justice could seek a break-up of the company to combat its domination of concert ticket sales. — Reuters
