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Happy Wednesday. Stock futures climbed Wednesday after Wall Street suffered a sharp sell-off Tuesday, pressured by a hotter-than-expected inflation report and a scandal involving AI chipmaking giant Nvidia (NVDA).
Nvidia shares were up about 5.25% after a two-day sell-off that erased more than $430 billion in market value. The shares had fallen amid reports involving CEO Jensen Huang and an alleged Chinese spy, raising questions about potential national security implications.
Nvidia announced it had hired law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate whether any company secrets were compromised or national security risks arose.
Meanwhile, CoreWeave (CRWV) shares soared nearly 13% in premarket trading after the cloud provider reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and raised its revenue outlook.
Stocks closed lower on Tuesday as the inflation report drove Treasury yields higher and renewed fears over Federal Reserve rate hikes, compounded by Nvidia’s sharp sell-off.
“U.S. equities came under renewed pressure on Tuesday as stronger-than-expected inflation forced investors to reassess the Federal Reserve’s tightening outlook,” Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com, said.
“While a December rate hike now appears almost fully priced in, the bigger concern is that investors may have underestimated how much further the Fed will need to tighten.”
Hathorn noted that just last week, markets were questioning whether two additional rate increases would be necessary. Now, three are effectively priced in.
“The possibility of a 50-basis-point increase in December has also entered the conversation, although it remains unlikely,” she said. “Markets are assigning around an 11% probability to a larger move, suggesting investors still expect the Fed to proceed in 25-basis-point increments.”
Recent hawkish comments from policymakers have reinforced expectations of further tightening, Hathorn said.
Still, the absence of dissenting votes for higher rates from Fed Governor Christopher Waller and Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan at the previous meeting suggests there is not yet a clear consensus for accelerating the pace of increases.