Wall St bubbly as Nvidia earnings loom

Stocks on Wall Street rose for a second day with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite leading the charge ahead of chipmaker Nvidia’s quarterly result after the bell, which is expected to show another jump in revenue, and as Claude chatbot-developer Anthropic’s new plugins with several software services cooled fears that artificial intelligence would disrupt those firms’ business models.

Across the Atlantic, a strong result from HSBC buoyed other lenders as financial stocks helped drive Europe’s STOXX 600 index to a record, while the continent’s biggest energy network operator E.ON hit a 15-year high as it prepares to ramp up spending to cater to the expected data centre build-out.

The kiwi dollar climbed close to 60 US cents as the outlook for tariffs remained murky, with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer saying the president would sign a new executive order lifting the global 10% levy to 15% for some countries, but wouldn’t escalate tensions with China.

And New Zealand’s earnings season continues today with Precinct Properties NZ, NZX, Sky Network Television and Heartland Group Holdings expected to deliver earnings growth, while national carrier Air New Zealand’s struggles are set to linger.

Holding all the chips

Stocks on Wall Street rallied for a second day, with the Nasdaq up 1.2% in late trading ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly earnings, which are expected to show a 66% jump in revenue and a 70% gain in net income.

IBM and Salesforce led the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher – up 0.6% in late trading – as investors’ nerves cooled about the threat posed by AI, due in part by Anthropic’s latest partnerships, which integrate plugins with platforms including Salesforce’s Slack, Intuit, Docusign and Google’s Gmail.

Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group surged 29% after beating analysts’ expectations as quarterly revenue jumped 77%, with its US dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies finding favour among investors during last year’s volatility.

Meanwhile, HP nudged higher after paring expectations for the coming year as it faces increased costs for the memory chips it uses in its computers.

That calming of the markets saw the volatility index – known as Wall Street’s fear gauge – drop 6% to 18.38 and Bitcoin jumped 6.7% to US$68,759 at 7am in Auckland, although gold, which is typically a haven for investors, advanced with futures up 0.9% at US$5,225 an ounce.

Will they or won’t they

The kiwi dollar climbed to 59.95 US cents at 7am in Auckland from 59.75 cents yesterday as US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said President Donald Trump might increase the global tariff on some countries, but didn’t plan to impose higher levies on China ahead of the meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.

“US trade policy uncertainty is back in focus after the White House flagged plans to lift the global US tariff rate to 15% ‘where appropriate,’ while emphasising continuity with existing trade agreements,” Bank of New Zealand senior interest rate strategist Stuart Ritson said in a note. “US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said countries with deals would avoid a higher cumulative tariff burden, and the administration will use a 150‑day window to run trade investigations that could ultimately lead to more targeted, permanent tariffs by country and industry.”

Across the Atlantic, the pan-European STOXX 600 climbed 0.7% to a record after HSBC climbed 8% as it cut costs at a faster rate than targeted and Spain’s Banco Santander laid out a new strategy to drive profitability and increased dividends from its recent acquisitions in the US and UK. The UK’s FTSE 100 climbed 1.2%, while Germany’s DAX advanced 0.8% and France’s CAC 40 climbed 0.5%

European energy network giant E.ON gained 3.5% after it said it would ramp up spending to €48 billion by 2030 to prepare for the expansion of data centres across the continent.

In the antipodes, Australian futures are pointing to a 0.3% gain for the S&P/ASX 200 index when trading opens across the Tasman, with Qantas Airways among companies reporting.

In New Zealand, Air New Zealand is expected to post  a 29% slide in first-half underlying earnings as it contends with soft demand and the lingering engine maintenance issues.

Meanwhile, Precinct Properties, Heartland, Sky TV and NZX are expected to report earnings growth.

Local data today include ANZ’s monthly business confidence survey and Reserve Bank lending figures.

Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Harold Mendoza on Unsplash.