Traders were busy on the New York Stock Exchange recently as stocks showed significant volatility. With important news on the horizon—like Nvidia’s earnings and the September jobs report—Wall Street was on edge.
The S&P 500 remained largely unchanged, paralleling similarly flat performance from both the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. These key indices flipped between positive and negative territory throughout the day.
In a noteworthy movement, Alphabet’s shares jumped over 5% after Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, disclosed it had taken a stake in Google and YouTube’s parent company. This acquisition seems to reflect continued investor confidence in AI, even after a remarkable surge in share prices this year. However, it’s worth noting that Buffett himself likely didn’t make the purchase; his stock managers probably handled that decision.
On the other hand, Nvidia’s stock dipped by more than 1% ahead of its third-quarter earnings report, set to be released Wednesday evening. Concerns are brewing among investors regarding escalating valuations in the AI sector, even amongst beloved companies like Nvidia.
As Dennis Follmer, the chief investment officer at Monteith Financial, pointed out, “NVIDIA’s earnings report with progressive guidance shouldn’t catch anyone off guard, but it might intensify worries about their seemingly endless AI capital budget.”
Additionally, market watchers are keenly anticipating the September nonfarm payroll report coming this Thursday—this will be the first major release since the recent U.S. government shutdown silence.
Whether this report surprises on the positive or negative side could greatly influence December rate-cut expectations, given how divided the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) currently is on future steps. “With the government open again, it seems more probable that the Fed will pause in December to thoroughly assess new economic data,” as stated by Vollmer.
Ending the previous week, the Nasdaq saw a decline of 0.5%, driven by drops in major tech stocks like Alphabet. While the Dow and S&P 500 managed to see some light gains last week, they suffered noticeable losses last Thursday.
