Stock market today: Wall Street poised for gains ahead of new jobs and inflation data

Wall Street is pointing to gains before Thursday’s opening bell and ahead of government data being released this week on layoffs and inflation.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.6% while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%. Nasdaq futures rose 0.8%.

The stock market has faltered on several week economic indicators over the past week as Americans grow pessimistic about inflation and the higher tariffs sought by President Donald Trump. Big Tech and other high-growth stocks have been the most vulnerable to the market swings.

Nvidia, the chip company that's become the poster child of the AI rush, ticked up a modest 0.8% after hours as it reported a surge in fourth-quarter profit and sales. The company reported as demand for its specialized Blackwell chips, which power artificial intelligence systems, continued to grow.

It was the first earnings report for the company since a Chinese upstart, DeepSeek, upended the AI industry by saying it developed a large language model that can compete with big U.S. rivals without having to use the most expensive chips. That called into question all the spending Wall Street assumed would go into not only Nvidia's chips but also the ecosystem that's built around the AI boom, including electricity to power large data centers.

Some Big Tech companies have since said they still plan to invest billions of dollars in AI, an encouraging sign for the industry.

EBay slumped 8% before the bell after a tepid sales forecast for this year overshadowed a strong fourth quarter.

Shares of vaccine maker Moderna slid close to 5% on a media report that the Trump administration is considering pulling funding for bird flu vaccines. Bloomberg reported that U.S. health officials are “reevaluating” a $590 million contract for bird flu shots awarded to Moderna in the waning days of the Biden administration.

The U.S. Commerce Department will issue its third and final estimate of how the U.S. economy performed in the final three months of 2024 on Thursday. The economy still appears to be in solid shape, and growth is continuing, though uncertainty is rising about the future.

Worries have been rising about whether U.S. shoppers may cut back on their spending, a key driver of growth, given stubbornly high inflation and jitters about outlook.

Also Thursday, the Labor Department offers up its weekly tally of layoffs.

A report on Friday will show how the gauge of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use has been behaving.

In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX lost 0.6% and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.3%. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.3%.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 38,256.17.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.3% to 23,718.29. Tech shares that had gained earlier in the week were among the heavier sellers. The Shanghai Composite index reversed early losses, closing 0.2% higher at 3,388.06.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 500 climbed 0.3% to 8,268.20, while the Kospi in South Korea dropped 0.7% to 2,621.75.

Taiwan’s benchmark index dropped 1.5% and the SET in Thailand sank 1.3%.

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