NEW YORK: Wall Street's three major indices closed higher on Tuesday (March 19) after shares in hotshot chipmaker Nvidia shook off early losses and investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve's policy meeting conclusion on Wednesday for clues on interest rate policy.
All three major indices advanced, with the S&P 500 at 5,178.51, up 0.6 percent, topping a record set a week ago.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 320.33 points, or 0.83%, to 39,110.76, the S&P 500 gained 29.09 points, or 0.56%, to 5,178.51 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 63.34 points, or 0.39%, to 16,166.79.
Shares in Nvidia pulled out of the red to close up 1% after it revealed pricing and shipment plans for its hotly anticipated Blackwell B200 artificial intelligence chip, which it says could be 30 times faster than current chips.
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles attributed Tuesday’s overall gains to improving sentiment after Nvidia’s shares turned around along with ongoing bullishness about the economy’s direction.
“You’re continuing to see money go into the market and not just technology,” said James. “It certainly helps when you’re seeing the large cap tech names today like Nvidia show relative strength from where they opened. But it’s continuing the overall bullish theme that’s been going on since the year started.”
In the S&P 500's 11 major industry sectors only communications services lost ground and that ended down just 0.2% after an almost 3% rally on Monday.
Energy led gains, rising 1.1% as oil prices rose.
Investors were preparing a day ahead of the Fed’s policy update, including a press conference from chair Jerome Powell. Robust inflation data has pulled back bets for the first rate cut in June to about 59% from about 69% at the start of last week, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
“There’s optimism that the Fed’s not going to surprise us a lot on Wednesday,” said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management. “We think three cuts are still on the table.”
But, Goldman still sees Powell reminding the market that he is cautious about inflation and that policy will depend on economic data and expects the central bank to update its inflation and economic growth projections.
Among other movers, crypto-exchange operator Coinbase Global fell almost 4% while miner Riot Platforms fell almost 3% along with a 5% slide in bitcoin. – Reuters
