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U.S. stock-index futures traded modestly higher on Friday, leaving the Nasdaq Composite poised for its first record high in more than two years.
What’s happening
-
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
+0.19%
rose by 55 points, or 0.2%, to 39,176. -
S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.23%
rose by 8 points, or 0.2%, to 5,105. -
Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
+0.20%
gained 21 points, or 0.1%, to 18,082.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA
rose 457 points, or 1.18%, to 39,069; the S&P 500
SPX
increased 105 points, or 2.11%, to 5,087; and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP
gained 461 points, or 2.96%, to 16,042.
The S&P 500 registered its 12th record finish of the year, as the Nasdaq Composite finished only 0.1% away from a new record.
Even beleaguered small-caps rose, with the Russell 2000
RUT
rising 1%.
What’s driving markets
Nvidia
NVDA,
will still be in the spotlight on Friday after the company’s stock price surged 16% on Thursday in the wake of its revenue for the fourth quarter, and sales outlook for the first quarter, handily beating analyst expectations.
The company’s advance has helped push the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 to record after record, and soon the Nasdaq Composite could celebrate a record high of its own in what would be its first closing record since Nov. 19, 2021. The index closed 0.1% shy of this level on Thursday, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Nvidia’s surge coincided with the largest increase in market capitalization in the history of corporate America, leaving it as the third most valuable stock in the S&P 500, now ahead of both Alphabet
GOOGL,
and Amazon.com
AMZN,
Investors heeded Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s proclamation that AI had “hit the tipping point.”
“We think generative AI will prove to be the growth theme of the decade, and Nvidia’s earnings report demonstrates the current strength of AI infrastructure spending,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer of UBS Global Wealth Management.
Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook, in a speech delivered after the stock market had closed on Thursday, said it will take time for AI to impact productivity. “History shows that the journey from invention of general-purpose technologies to innovation to productivity can be long and uneven. Although adoption of generative AI is happening at a rapid clip, the full benefit of a technology requires complementary investments as well as changes in corporate structure, management practices, and worker training,” she said.
Cook said current monetary policy is restrictive but said she wanted greater confidence inflation is converging to the Fed’s 2% target before cutting interest rates.
Fed Gov. Christopher Waller made a similar point, in an address Thursday that also was delivered after the stock market had closed. “I still expect it will be appropriate sometime this year to begin easing monetary policy, but the start of policy easing and number of rate cuts will depend on the incoming data,” said Waller.
The latest earnings reports were mixed. Warner Bros. Discovery
WBD,
shares tumbled in premarket trading after the company posted a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss.
Meanwhile, Block’s
SQ,
stock was ahead 17% in premarket trading Friday after reporting stronger-than-expected margins and bottom-line growth late Thursday.
Intuitive Machines’ stock
LUNR,
rallied in premarket trade after the company’s Odysseus spacecraft reached the moon, and started sending signals back to Earth.
