NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is holding steady ahead of a couple of big tests for Wall Street. The S&P 500 edged up 0.1% early Wednesday. The index is coming off a four-day losing streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average barely budged, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%. Lowe’s rose after reporting better-than-expected profits for the summer. TJX climbed after the company behind TJ Maxx and Marshalls stores likewise delivered a stronger profit than expected. Nvidia, the superstar AI chip company, reports its latest results after the close of trading, and on Thursday the government belatedly releases its September jobs report.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
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.