US stocks soared higher on Thursday morning after a strong earnings report from tech giant Nvidia bolstered investor optimism on Wall Street.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 278 points, or 0.7%. The S&P 500 gained 1.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 2.4% higher.
The S&P 500 hit a record high during morning trading on the pop in big tech and the Nasdaq is tracking towards a new all-time high as well.
Nvidia (NVDA), one of the largest companies on Wall Street, led gains after reporting extraordinary earnings growth, fueled by the artificial intelligence boom.
Profits of the chipmaker grew to nearly $12.3 billion in the three months ended January 28 — up from $1.4 billion in the year-ago quarter, a gain of 769% year-over-year and even stronger growth than Wall Street analysts had expected. That result helped bring the company’s full-year profits up more than 580% from the year earlier.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement on Wednesday evening that generative AI has now “hit the tipping point.”
“Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations,” he added.
Shares of the stock were 15.3% higher in morning trading, a reversal from earlier in the week when the company logged its worst day since October.
Other chipmakers benefited from Nvidia’s good news. Shares of AMD (AMD) were 9.5% higher on Thursday morning and Microsoft (MSFT) was 2% higher.
The Nvidia boost has put Federal Reserve worries on the backburner for now, but traders got some disappointing news on Wednesday.
Fed officials continue to worry that inflation could stay stubbornly high during their policy meeting last month, minutes released yesterday afternoon showed. That could keep interest rates at 23-year high for longer than previously expected, affecting Americans’ borrowing costs on everything from car loans to mortgages.
Traders now largely expect the Fed to begin cutting rates in June or July, rather than at its May policy meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
This story is developing and will be updated.
