Stock market today: World shares mostly advance ahead of Nvidia profit
report
 [February 26, 2025] By
ELAINE KURTENBACH
BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mostly higher on Wednesday ahead of a
keenly anticipated quarterly profit report by Nvidia and an update on
the state of the U.S. economy.
Germany's DAX rose 1.3% to 22,696.44, while the CAC 40 in Paris jumped
1.1% to 8,163.84. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 0.6% to 8,716.51.
The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.5%, while that for the Dow Jones
Industrial Average gained 0.3%.
The U.S. Commerce Department was due to issue its third and final
estimate of how the U.S. economy performed in the fourth quarter of 2024
later in the day. The economy still appears to be in solid shape, and
growth is continuing at the moment. But recently, weaker than expected
economic reports have siphoned away some of the momentum that took Wall
Street to repeated records in recent months.
“What was supposed to be a soft-landing narrative is quickly turning
into a hard dose of reality,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said
in a report. “The U.S. economic backdrop is shifting sharply lower, a
stark contrast to the euphoria that defined the start of ’25. And now,
investors are scrambling to adjust their positioning on the fly,” he
said.
In Asian trading, Chinese markets led gains, lifted by strong buying of
technology shares.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 3.4% to 23,811.21, while the Shanghai
Composite index added 0.8% to 3,372.74.
Hong Kong-traded shares in food delivery company Meituan surged 9.8%,
while e-commerce giant Alibaba gained 4.8%. Gaming and technology
company Tencent Holdings advanced 3.4% and search engine and AI company
Baidu was up 3.3%.
Such companies have regained some strength as Beijing has indicated
stronger support for the private sector after years of crackdowns on
tech companies.
Elsewhere in the region, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index shed 0.3% to
38,142.37. Big Japanese trading companies slipped following gains driven
by billionaire Warren Buffett's disclosure in his annual letter to
shareholders that he increased Berkshire Hathaway's investments in those
companies.
The Kospi in Seoul rose 0.4% to 2,641.09.
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Persons walk past an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei
index at a securities firm Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, in Tokyo. (AP
Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
 Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gave up 0.1%
to 8,240.70. In Taiwan, the Taiex gained 0.5%. Thailand's SET was up
0.9%.
On Tuesday, some of Wall Street’s brightest stars lost more of their
shine after a report said U.S. households are getting more
pessimistic about the economy.
The S&P 500 fell 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite sank
1.4% and the Dow industrials added 0.4%.
Tesla tumbled 8.4%, while Nvidia fell 2.8%. The chip maker is due
Wednesday to release its first earnings report since a Chinese
upstart, DeepSeek, upended the artificial-intelligence industry by
saying it has developed a large language model that can compete with
big U.S. rivals without having to use the most expensive chips.
That has called into question all the spending Wall Street had
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.
But for the first time since June, a measure of consumers’
expectations for the economy in the short term fell below a
threshold that usually signals a recession ahead, according to The
Conference Board. The increase in pessimism was broad-based and
carried across both higher- and lower-income households, as well as
older and younger ones.
Wall Street tracks consumer confidence because strong spending is
what helps keep stave off recession. And Tuesday’s report echoed
what an earlier report from the University of Michigan suggested:
Consumers see the current situation as OK, but they’re worried about
the future.
In other dealings early Wednesday, Bitcoin was trading at about
$89,000.
U.S. benchmark crude oil was unchanged at $68.93 per barrel. Brent
crude, the international standard, dropped $1.60 to $72.45 per
barrel.
The dollar rose to 149.34 Japanese yen from 149.03 yen. The euro
slipped to $1.0495 from $1.0515.
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