Stocks muted as traders assess Nvidia earnings and US tariffs

Nvidia (NVDA) reported its fiscal fourth quarter results after the bell on Wednesday, beating analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines. The company also offered Q1 guidance between $76.44 billion and $79.56 billion, above Wall Street’s estimates of $72.8 billion.

That outlook doesn’t include any potential revenue out of China.

Nvidia shares rose as much as 3% in after-hours trading before giving up those gains.

For the quarter, Nvidia saw earnings per share of $1.62 on revenue of $68.1 billion. Wall Street was anticipating EPS of $1.53 on revenue of $65.8 billion, according to Bloomberg analyst consensus estimates. The company reported EPS of $0.89 and revenue of $39.3 billion in the same quarter last year.

Nvidia’s data center drove the vast majority of that growth, bringing in $62.3 billion for the period. That’s better than analysts’ projections of $60.2 billion.

CFO Colette Kress said much of that came from hyperscalers.

Stocks in Asia were mixed overnight, with the Nikkei (^N225) rising 0.3% on the day in Tokyo as investors adjust their expectations regarding further interest rate increases by the Bank of Japan.

Meanwhile the Hang Seng (^HSI) fell 1.4% in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was flat by the end of the session, both indexes taking a moment to consolidate after significant rallies in the last two sessions.

In South Korea, the Kospi (^KS11) surged 3.7% on the day, leading the way, and again achieving another record high, primarily driven by chipmakers Samsung (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS).

It comes as the Bank of Korea (BOK) kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.50% while signalling that policy would stay unchanged for the next six months as a chip boom in exports and steady inflation allow policymakers more time to assess financial stability risks.

The central bank raised its growth forecast for 2026 to 2.0% from a previous estimate of 1.8%, citing stronger-than-expected chip exports. Following the decision, yields on the policy-sensitive 3-year government bonds fell 4.6bps to trade at 3.12%.

Across the pond on Wall Street, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.8%, closing within half a percent of its record high last month, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) was 1.3% higher. The Dow Jones (^DJI) also gained 0.6%.

Good morning, and welcome back to our markets live blog. As usual we will be taking a deep dive into what’s moving markets and what’s happening across the global economy.

Looking at the day ahead now, data releases include the US weekly initial jobless claims, the Euro Area M3 money supply for January, and the European Commission’s economic sentiment indicator for the Euro Area in February.

From central banks, we’ll hear from ECB President Lagarde and the ECB’s Dolenc, along with the Fed’s Bowman and the BoE’s Lombardelli. Finally in the UK, there’s a parliamentary by-election in Gorton and Denton.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the agenda:

• 7am: Trading updates: Rolls-Royce, London Stock Exchange Group, Howden Joinery, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, WPP, Drax, Derwent London, Ocado, PPHE Hotels, Jupiter Asset Management and Vanquis Banking

• 8.30am: Christine Lagarde testifies to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) of the European Parliament

• 9.30am: UK’s ONS publishes latest quarterly NEETs data

• 1.30pm: US weekly jobless claims