STORY: U.S. stocks ended a choppy session higher on Wednesday, with the Dow ticking up marginally, the S&P 500 adding more than a third of a percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gaining over half a percent.
Investors were laser-focused on earnings from Nvidia, which reported quarterly results after the market close.
Shares of the AI chip leader, which ended almost 3% higher, climbed further in extended trading after the company forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates.
Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, says the company's strong results, and ensuing stock move, could help the S&P 500 close out the week on a high note.
"So whatever happens to this particular stock (Nvidia), it has an outsized impact on the broader index just because of its weight, you know, the market cap being over 5 trillion dollars. But as I look at the beta (a measure of a stock's volatility, or risk, relative to the overall market) here recently, it's a 2.1, which means, again, you have the largest constituent by market cap moving at twice the amount of the market. So whatever happens, good or bad, it's going to have an outsized impact on what the trading looks like for the next couple of days."
Shares of fellow chipmaker Broadcom and chip equipment maker Applied Materials each closed more than 4% higher.
Among the day's decliners, Target shares slipped nearly 3% after the retailer reported a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly sales.
Investors now turn their attention to Thursday's release of the September jobs report following the record-long U.S. government shutdown.
