Wall Street indexes end rocky session higher; Nvidia gains after hours  

NEW YORK – US stocks ended a choppy session higher on Wednesday, bouncing off recent losses as technology stocks rose ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly results.

Nvidia shares gained more than 5% after ending the regular session up 2.8% as the artificial intelligence leader forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices rose 2.8% after the bell, while Alphabet was up 1.6% and Palantir Technologies was up 4%.

“The market is breathing a big, collective sigh of relief because Nvidia is confirming that AI demand is strong,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York.

“If it sticks and stays by tomorrow’s close … this little pullback in the market could end.” The S&P 500 is still down more than 3% from its October highs.

Indexes briefly pared gains during the regular session after minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting showed policymakers cautioned that lower borrowing costs could undermine the fight against inflation. The Fed cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point at each of its meetings in September and October.

Worries about a cooling labor market persisted ahead of Thursday’s release of the September US jobs report following the record-long US government shutdown. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics said it will not publish the October employment report, but will instead combine nonfarm payrolls for that month with November’s report.

Nvidia’s results have been seen as a test for the AI-driven rally that has powered the market to record highs this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 47.03 points, or 0.10%, to 46,138.77, the S&P 500 gained 24.84 points, or 0.38%, to 6,642.16, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 131.38 points, or 0.59%, to 22,564.23.

Investors have worried about how companies will be able to make money from their huge investments in AI.

Among decliners, Target shares fell 2.8% after the retailer reported a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly sales as cash-strapped US consumers cut back on discretionary spending.

Shares of Walmart, which is due to report earnings on Thursday before the bell, ended 0.8% lower.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.59-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, where there were 55 new highs and 211 new lows.

On the Nasdaq, 1,846 stocks rose and 2,851 fell, as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.54-to-1 ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 12 new 52-week highs and 22 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 48 new highs and 305 new lows.

Volume on US exchanges was 17.46 billion shares, compared with the roughly 20.2 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; additional reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Maju Samuel, and Richard Chang)