Stock market today: Wall Street points toward gains, Nvidia shares fall despite another big beat

AP Business Writers

Wall Street is on track to open with gains following another strong earnings report from chipmaker Nvidia even if it didn’t meet the sky-high expectations of investors.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.2% before the bell Thursday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%.

Nvidia’s latest sales and profit report again topped analysts’ expectations, but the chipmaker’s shares were down less than 1% just hours before Thursday’s opening bell.

Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said the market reaction to Nvidia’s performance was partly due to the positioning of investors before quarterly results were published.

It’s grown so fast, with its stock nearly tripling for the year so far, that pressure has grown for it to show it can keep leapfrogging past high expectations on Wall Street.

Shares of Google parent company Alphabet also retreated less than 1% after U.S. regulators asked judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser. In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favoring its own search engine.

Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android, but left the door open to it if the company’s oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.

U.S. benchmark crude prices are up 5% this week and on Thursday broke above $70 per barrel with Russia’s war in Ukraine intensifying. After the Biden administration allowed Ukraine to attack Russia with longer-range American-made ATACMS missiles, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced this week permitting a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.

Deere & Co. rose 1.3% after the farm equipment manufacturer posted surprisingly strong fourth-quarter results.

Shares of India’s Adani Enterprises plunged 23% Thursday after the U.S. charged founder Gautam Adani, 62, in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The Indian businessman and one of the world’s richest people is accused of duping investors by concealing that his company’s huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme.

At midday in Europe, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.3%, while Germany’s DAX rose 0.3%. Britain’s FTSE 100 also added 0.3%.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.9% to finish at 38,026.17, as shares in semiconductor equipment maker Advantest Corp. dropped 1.6%. Chip maker Tokyo Electron shed 0.4%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.1% to 8,323.00. South Korea’s Kospi declined less than 0.1% to 2,480.63. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.5% to 19,601.11, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed, rising less than 0.1% to 3,370.40.

U.S. crude gained $1.35 to $70.10 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added $1.32 to $74.13 a barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 154.49 Japanese yen from 155.31 yen. The euro cost $1.0549, inching up from $1.0546.

Bitcoin is trading at $97,550 early Thursday after eclipsing $98,000 for the first time.

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