Stock market today: Indexes slip before Nvidia reports highly anticipated earnings

Nvidia is set to report its earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday.

US stocks closed lower on Wednesday as traders waited eagerly for Nvidia’s latest quarterly earnings results.

All three benchmark indexes ended with a loss, while bond yields inched higher.

Investors are laser-focused on Nvidia, which will report its earnings for the second quarter after the closing bell. (Follow along for live updates here.)

Wall Street expects the firm to have generated over $28 billion in revenue last quarter, but given Nvidia’s massive valuation and endless hype around artificial intelligence, even a slight miss could fuel a big swing in the stock.

“The company…is expected to double its sales compared with last year. It is difficult to beat such expectations, but giving an optimistic revenue forecast for future quarters and years without disappointing investors is even harder,” Alex Kuptsikevich, a senior market analyst at FXPro, said in a note on Wednesday.

Analysts have also struck a cautious tone around delays of Nvidia’s key next-gen Blackwell chip, which could spark further volatility in the share price, they say.

However, if the chip giant can beat estimates yet again, and also point to the ways in which its customers are making money from its AI hardware, Wall Street will likely fuel a fresh rally in the stock. Goldman Sachs this week said that options pricing ahead of the earnings were pointing to a potential $298 billion swing in the stock after the results.

Traders are also eyeing more guidance from central bankers on Fed rate cuts this year, with Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic set to speak this evening. That could impact the market’s ambitious rate cut expectations, given that investors are pricing in 100 to 125 basis points worth of cuts by the end of the year.

Here’s where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. closing bell on Wednesday:

• S&P 500: 5,592.21, down 0.6%

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 41,091.42, down 0.39% (-33.59 points)

• Nasdaq composite: 17,556.03, down 1.12%

Here’s what else is going on:

• Trump Media shares fell below $20 for the first time since going public in March.
• The swift rebound in stocks after this month’s huge sell-off is a cause for concern, a Goldman strategist said.
• The election is a win for stocks no matter who comes out on top, NDR said.
• Super Micro Computer plunged after it delayed a key financial filing a day after a short-seller issued a scathing report on the company.

In commodities, bonds, and crypto:

• Oil futures were down. West Texas Intermediate crude oil dropped 1% to $74.74 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 0.9% to $78.83.
• Gold dipped 0.67% to $2,507.97 an ounce.
• The 10-year Treasury yield ticked higher one basis point to 3.844%.
• Bitcoin dropped 4.51% to $59,346.