A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Wall Street bounced back from this week’s losses early Wednesday ahead of the latest earnings report from Nvidia, considered a bellwether for artificial intelligence sector.
S&P 500 futures gained 0.3% before the bell, Dow Jones Industrial futures ticked up 0.1% and Nasdaq futures rose 0.4%.
Nvidia reports its earnings for the last quarter after the closing bell. The most influential stock on Wall Street, Nvidia steers the direction of the S&P 500 some days. Fervent demand for its artificial-intelligence chips has helped it briefly top $5 trillion in total value.
Shares of the California company are up about 2% before the market opens.
Target slid 1.9% after its third-quarter profit tumbled and the retailer said that it expects its sales slump to extend through the critical holiday shopping season. The Minneapolis company has struggled to lure inflation-weary shoppers and investors have punished it, sending its shares down 43% over the past year.
Lowe’s jumped more than 5% after the home improvement chain beat Wall Street profit targets and raised some of its full-year guidance.
Constellation Energy jumped 3.4% after the U.S. Department of Energy said that it will loan $1 billion to help finance the restart of Constellation’s nuclear power plant on Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island that is under contract to supply power to data centers for tech giant Microsoft.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 ticked up 0.1%, Germany’s DAX rose 0.4% and the FTSE 100 in Britain was unchanged.
In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3% to finish at 48,537.70. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.4% to 25,830.65, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.2% to 3,946.74.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3% to 8,447.90, while South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.6% to 3,929.51. Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.7%.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude lost $1.17, or 1.9%, to $59.50 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell $1.16 to $63.73 per barrel.
A currency trader stretches near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)