Investing.com– U.S. markets opened higher on Monday morning, with investors focused on earnings from artificial intelligence firm Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVIDIA) and a key inflation report due later in the week amid expectations of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September.
At 09:37 ET (13:37 GMT), the S&P 500 index was up 0.26% at 5,646 points, while the S&P 500 index was up 0.3% at 41,332.01 points. The S&P 500 index was up 0.1% at 17,900.77 points.
Nvidia earnings are just around the corner as ai rally falters
Nvidia is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, with the focus squarely on whether the chipmaker was able to maintain its stellar pace of profit growth thanks to a boost from artificial intelligence.
The company, which makes the most advanced ai chips on the market, was a key beneficiary of the growing interest in ai, doubling in value to become one of the most valuable companies on Wall Street last year.
The results and forecasts will be a key test for the ai-driven market rally this year. They will offer more insight into the state of ai demand and come after a string of mixed results from other tech heavyweights raised questions about how much of last year’s stock market gains were justified. Major companies such as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:) have fallen following their second-quarter earnings reports.
PCE inflation rises as expectations of September rate cuts rise
This week, the data-dependent Federal Reserve will have a number of economic indicators to consider ahead of its September rate decision, including the Commerce Department's revised second-quarter report and its broad Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report, which includes the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation, the PCE price index.
Inflation data will be closely watched, although recent comments from Federal Reserve policymakers have indicated that the Fed's focus has shifted to labor market risks and that inflation is close enough to target to make it possible to cut rates as early as next month.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday that “the time has come” to lower the federal funds target rate and that “upside risks to inflation have receded.” The remarks appeared to all but guarantee a rate cut at the Fed’s Sept. 18 meeting, which would be the first such cut in more than four years.
(Ambar Warrick contributed reporting)
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
