US stocks end midweek with gains ahead of Nvidia earnings

ISTANBUL

US stocks ended higher Wednesday as investors awaited chip giant Nvidia's third-quarter financial results and Fed rate cut expectations continued to decline.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.10%, or 47.03 points, to close at 46,138.77.

The S&P 500 gained 0.38%, or 24.84 points to close at 6,642.16, and the Nasdaq rose 0.59%, or 131.38 points, to end midweek at 22,564.23.

Declining rate cut expectations for the Federal Reserve's December meeting and Nvidia's financial results to be released after the markets' close moved markets up.

Nvidia saw a 2.85% rise before its third-quarter earnings. The chip giant, which is the biggest in the broad-market index, is expected by analysts to significantly surpass market expectations and predict robust revenue growth fueled by demand for its AI chips and other infrastructure.

Alphabet also rose more than 3%, making it among the day's winners. The company's latest generation of its AI models, Gemini 3, which it unveiled Tuesday, was causing shares to rise.

Meanwhile, the minutes of the last meeting of the Fed that were released Wednesday showed that officials could not agree on whether a stagnant labor market or persistent inflation posed greater economic risks and also on the interest rate path.

Disagreements continued into December's forecast, with officials voicing doubts about the necessity of a further cut that the markets had been eagerly awaiting, with "many" stating that no further cuts are required at least until the end of the year.

According to CME FedWatch, traders were pricing in a 33.4% chance of a 25-basis-point cut in December on Wednesday, down from a 63.8% probability in the previous week.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ announcement that the October employment report would not be released due to the inability to collect some data during the federal government shutdown also contributed to the weakening of interest rate cut expectations.

The bureau said the November report will include some October data and that it will now be released on Dec. 16 instead of Dec. 5 as originally scheduled.

On the macroeconomic data side, the US foreign trade deficit in August was $59.6 billion, coming below market expectations of $61.3 billion and falling by 23.8% from $78.2 billion in July, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed.