Stock futures pointed higher Wednesday, building off two days of sharp gains to begin the holiday-shortened week. Stock and bond markets will be closed tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and will be closing early on Friday.
Futures associated with the tech-heavy Nasdaq, benchmark S&P 500, and blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average were up a respective 0.4%, 0.3%, and 0.2%.
Through the first two trading days of the holiday-shortened week, the Nasdaq gained 3.4%, while the S&P 500 and Dow were up 2.5% and 1.9%, respectively. Yesterday, the Dow led the charge, advancing 1.4%, or 663 points.
Although the major indexes rose sharply yesterday, Nvidia (NVDA) and other semiconductor shares fell on a report Meta Platforms (META) may use Google’s AI chips in its data centers. Nvidia stock ended down 2.6%, while shares of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) continued its recent ascent after the company unveiled its advanced Gemini 3 AI model last week, rising 1.5%. Shares of Nvidia were down a further 0.6% in premarket trading, while those of Alphabet were up nearly 2%.
Shares of chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Broadcom (AVGO) pointed down 1% and up 1%, respectively. Yesterday, AMD shares fell 4.1% to lead S&P decliners, while those of Broadcom rose 2.6% following an S&P 500- and Nasdaq-leading 11% advance Monday.
In post-earnings moves, Urban Outfitters (URBN) stock soared 18%, Dell Technologies (DELL) advanced 3.5%, HP (HPQ) fell 4.5%, and Deere & Co. (DE) dropped 5%.
Bitcoin was trading around $86,900, down from its overnight high of about $88,200. The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the performance of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, ticked higher to 99.79.
WTI crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, slipped 0.1% to $57.90 per barrel. Gold futures were 0.3% higher at $4,155 per ounce.