4:10pm: US stocks down for second straight day
Major US stock indices finished the day lower following mixed messaging from Federal Reserve officials on US interest rates as some investors took profits in key AI-related stocks.
The Nasdaq, Dow, and S&P 500 all fell about 0.3%.
Shares of AI chip giant Nvidia gave back 0.8%, while another notable AI play, Oracle, saw its stock price slip nearly 2%.
Bucking the trend was shares of Alibaba, which climbed more than 8% after the Chinese tech giant pledged to boost its AI spending beyond its original $50 billion target.
3:10pm: Proactive news headlines
- Trust Stamp Inc (NASDAQ:IDAI, EURONEXT:AIID) announced the publication of a Partnership Brief by Intel Corporation focused on its “Protect” artificial intelligence (AI)-powered identity platform.
- HIVE Digital Technologies (TSX-V:HIVE, NASDAQ:HIVE) said it has crossed a major threshold in its Bitcoin mining operations, reaching 2% of the global Bitcoin network and surpassing 20 exahash per second (EH/s) of computing power.
- Nextech3D.AI (CSE:NTAR, OTCQX:NEXCF) revealed more details about its previously announced blockchain ticketing roadmap.
12:30pm: Wall Street stock selling continues
Major US stock indices were all lower midday following mixed messaging from Federal Reserve officials on US interest rates.
The Nasdaq led the decline in the overall market, slipping 0.5%, while the S&P 500 gave back 0.4%, and the Dow edged 0.2% lower.
Bucking the trend was shares of Alibaba, which climbed as much as 10% after the Chinese tech giant pledged to boost its AI spending beyond its original $50 billion target.
9.55am: Wall St still bit wobbly
US stocks started higher, quickly dropped into the red and were roughly flat after roughly half an hour of trading.
The Dow Jones was up 33 points or less than 0.1% higher at 46,326, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both just below flat.
Biggest fallers on the S&P were miner Freeport-McMoRan, which warned of lower sales in the third quarter, Oracle and Adobe.
Among the Mag 7 tech titans, Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet were also in the red.
Top risers on the Nasdaq 100 were Marvell Technology and Intel.
Marvell announced an additional $5 billion stock repurchase and a $1 billion accelerated share repurchase program.
8am: Nasdaq futures point to small rebound
Wall Street futures were pointing slightly higher on Wednesday after sentiment was dented by Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell the day before.
Dow Jones futures were 33 points or less than 0.1% above flat, while those for the S&P 500 were up almost 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 futures close to 0.3% higher.
Driving the slight improvement in mood were the 'Mag 7' tech giants, which were all slightly higher in pre-market trading, after sliding on Tuesday following very measured comments from Fed chair Powell, including that there is no "risk free policy path ahead".
Powell said "equity prices are fairly highly valued" by many measures, and suggested that the path for future rate cuts was far from clear and that the US central bank faced a "challenging situation".
He also reiterated that recent softness in the labour market overshadowed a recent rise and stickiness in inflation, which had tipped the FOMC to cut rates last week.
This Friday sees the release of core PCE, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation.
Amazon and Oracle were two of the weakest performers on the S&P 500 yesterday, with the former down over 2% as the debate raged on about its $100 billion investment in Open AI, where the money will be used to buy Nvidia chips to build Open AI’s data centres and stoked up fears about a ‘circular’ financing model.
There was also the UN speech from Donald Trump where he lambasted European leaders for immigration and climate change policies, but he also said that with the support of the European Union, Ukraine could ‘win’ the war with Russia, and reclaim all of its territory taken by Russia since 2022.
Oil and gold prices were roughly in a holding pattern on Wednesday, at $64.23 a barrel and $3,770 an ounce respectively.
The dollar was stronger, with the DXY index climbing 0.4% to 97.7.
Stock selling was "shallow" yesterday, said market analyst David Morrison at Trade Nation, with technical analysis suggesting "no damage has yet been done to the bulls".
"September is often cited as a difficult month for equities. But with just a week to go before entering the final quarter of the year, US equities appear to be in a good place.
"And the general feeling is, as the market approaches the triple-witching expiry this Thursday and Friday, that any pullback is a buying opportunity. Could this time be different? We’ll soon see."