By Martin Baccardax, TheStreet, 2024-08-29
Check back for updates throughout the trading day
U.S. equity futures bumped higher Thursday, paired with a modest pullback in Treasury bond yields, as investors cleared the end-of-summer hurdle of Nvidia earnings and looked to growth and inflation data to consolidate the market's August rally.
Nvidia's (NVDA) highly-anticipated July-quarter earnings report included record data center revenues, a solid near-term demand outlook and solid profit margins, but hints to delays for its new Blackline processors and slowing overall revenue growth rates clipped the stock in after-hours trading.
The broader market optimism in the AI investment story, however, remains largely unchanged, and should support markets heading into the final trading days of the summer and next week's Labor Day holiday.
Related: Nvidia earnings top forecast, but Blackwell delay signal hits stock
Focus in today's session is now likely to shift to the Federal Reserve's rate path
, which is inexorably tied to the pace of inflation pressures and a cooling labor market heading into the central bank's September policy meeting in Washington.
Traders have locked-in around 100 basis points of rate cuts between now and the end of the year, and put the odds of a 50 basis point cut next month at around 36.5%, according to data from the CME Group's FedWatch.
That could change today, however, with the release of an advanced reading for second quarter GDP growth
, which will include detailed inflation data, as well as the Labor Department's tally of weekly jobless claims, both of which are slated for 8:30 am Eastern time.
Bond markets were steady heading into the data releases, with 2-year notes trading at 3.861% and benchmark 10-year notes easing to 3.822% at the start of the New York session.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global currencies, was marked 0.15% higher at 101.241 as it continues to rebound from the 13-month low it hit earlier this week.
On Wall Street, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500, which is up 1.3% for the month and is just 1.4% from its July all-time peak, suggest a 10 point opening bell gain for the bluechip benchmark.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, is called 185 points higher with the tech-focused Nasdaq priced for a more modest 35 point advance.
Nvidia shares were marked 2% lower, and indicating an opening bell price of $123.24 each, with more than 4.3 million shares changing hands in premarket trading.
Salesforce (CRM) shares were also active, rising 5.07% to $272.02 each after the client software group topped the Street's second quarter earnings forecasts and boosted its full-year profit forecast on improved cloud spending prospects.
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- Kamala Harris sees markets stars align against Donald Trump
- CPI report upsets betting on big Fed rate cut
- Main Street businesses push back on Wall Street recession gloom
In Europe, Germany's DAX performance index hit a fresh all-time high of 18,892.92 points in early Frankfurt trading, while the regional Stoxx 600 benchmark added to recent gains with a 0.68% advance.
Overnight in Asia, markets were largely muted in the wake of Nvidia's earnings report, with the Nikkei 225 ending 0.02% lower in Tokyo and the MSCI ex-Japan benchmark falling 0.17% into the close of trading.
