Wall Street ends mixed; traders look to Nvidia report
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Traders working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City, on Nov 14.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK - Wall Street stocks ended mixed on Nov 14 as investors looked ahead to Nvidia’s quarterly results next week and worried that the Federal Reserve may hold off on cutting US interest rates in December.
The market partly recovered after a selloff early in the session that dragged all three major Wall Street indexes down more than 1 per cent.
Investors, in recent days, have fretted about the pace of rate cuts and pricey valuations of heavyweight artificial intelligence stocks that have fuelled much of the US stock market’s gains in recent years.
Nvidia, Palantir, Microsoft and Tesla all gained.
Expectations the Fed will cut rates at its December policy meeting have faded in recent days amid signs of persistent inflation, caused in part by US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs.
The probability of a 25-basis-point rate cut in December has fallen to under 50 per cent from 67 per cent last week, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
Kansas City Fed president Jeffrey Schmid said on Nov 14 his concerns about “too hot” inflation go well beyond the narrow effects of tariffs, signalling that he could dissent again at the Fed’s December meeting should policymakers opt to cut short-term borrowing costs. He was one of two dissenters in the Fed’s October decision to lower the policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point.
AI chipmaker Nvidia will be at the centre of Wall Street’s attention when it reports quarterly results on Nov 19, with investors eager for fresh evidence that a race to dominate the emerging technology is not losing steam.
“We’ve got a huge event next week with Nvidia,” said Mr Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina. “If Nvidia disappoints, they will be punished. But I also think that - kind of like you’re seeing today - you’ll see dip buyers come back in pretty quickly and stabilise things.”
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 2.70 points, or 0.05 per cent, to end at 6,734.42 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 29.17 points, or 0.13 per cent, to 22,899.53. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 308.29 points, or 0.65 per cent, to 47,148.93.
Concerns about the labour market’s health and the inflation outlook have weighed on investors, who expect some permanent gaps in official economic data even after the record-long US government shutdown ended on Nov 13.
In global trade, the Swiss government said US tariffs on Swiss goods will be reduced to 15 per cent from 39 per cent.
Warner Bros Discovery gained after the entertainment company said it had amended CEO David Zaslav’s employment agreement amid a strategic review of its business.
Cidara Therapeutics shares doubled after Merck said it will acquire the company in a nearly US$9.2 billion deal. REUTERS
