- Nvidia reported solid earnings for fiscal-Q4 triggering an almost 15% surge in its shares. Company reported better-than-expected sales and earnings, and provide optimistic outlook for the current quarter
- Other semiconductor companies also benefit from Nvidia's rally - AMD gains around 11%, while Broadcom jumps 6%. Big tech companies gains as well - Meta Platforms trades 4% higher, Amazon gains 3% and Microsoft adds 2%
- Wall Street indices rally, fuelled by strong performance of tech sector. S&P 500 trades 2% higher and trades at fresh all-time highs. Nasdaq-100 gains almost 3% and trades near 18,000 pts. Dow Jones adds 1% while small-cap Russell 2000 trades 0.7% higher
- European stock market indices finished today's trading higher. German DAX gained almost 1.5%, UK FTSE 100 traded 0.3% higher, French CAC40 and Dutch AEX jumped 1.3% while Italian FTSE MIB gained 1.1%
- GBP and NZD are the best performing major currencies, while CHF and JPY lag the most
- Energy commodities trade higher while gold and silver drop
- Cryptocurrencies trade higher - Bitcoin gains 0.1%, Ethereum jumps 1.7% and Dogecoin trades 0.5% higher
- ECB minutes showed that European central bankers still see premature rate cut as a bigger risk than delayed rate cut. More progress on disinflation needed. Money markets see the first ECB rate cut in June
- Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey left 1-week repo rate unchanged at 45.00%, in-line with market expectations. This was the first hold since May 2023
- US manufacturing PMI increased from 50.7 to 51.5 in February (exp. 50.5) while services PMI dropped from 52.5 to 51.3 (exp. 52.0)
- French manufacturing PMI increased from 43.1 to 46.8 in February (exp. 43.5) while services PMI increased from 45.4 to 48.0 (exp. 45.6)
- German manufacturing PMI dropped from 45.5 to 42.3 in February (exp. 46.1) while services PMI increased from 47.7 to 48.2 (exp. 48.0)
- Euro area manufacturing PMI dropped from 46.6 to 46.1 in February (exp. 47.0) while services PMI increased from 48.4 to 50.0 (exp. 48.8)
- UK manufacturing PMI increased from 47.0 to 47.1 in February (exp. 47.5) while services PMI stayed unchanged at 54.3 (exp. 54.1)
- Canadian retail sales increased 0.9% MoM in December while core retail sales (excluding autos) increased 0.6% (exp. 0.7% MoM0
- US existing home sales increased from 3.78 million to 4.00 million in January (exp. 3.97 million). Average sale price increased 5.1% YoY, with January being the 7th month of consecutive increases
- EIA report showed a 60 billion cubic feet drop in US natural gas inventories (exp. -59 bcf)
- DOE report showed a 3.51 million barrel build in US oil inventories (exp. +4.3 mb), a 0.29 mb drop in gasoline inventories (exp. -3.0 mb) and a 4.01 million barrel plunge in distillate inventories (exp. -1.8 mb)
Nvidia (NVDA.US) rallies around 15% today and supports sentiment towards whole the sector, driving the 2.5% jump on Nasdaq-100 (US100). Source: xStation5
