US stock futures gained on Wednesday in a sign that AI fears are waning, as investors waited for a fresh batch of earnings and for Federal Reserve minutes to give insight into interest-rate cuts.

S&P 500 futures (ES=F) added 0.5^%, while those on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (NQ=F) moved roughly 0.6% higher. Meanwhile, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures (YM=F) added 0.4% after the major US gauges closed Tuesday with modest gains.

Technology stocks are recovering composure after a turbulent stretch that saw software names in particular take a bruising. But while the pressure is easing, investors are still weighing the long-term impact of AI on business models and corporate competition, adding to the long-running debate over when AI spending will pay off.

Attention is turning now to the Fed's January meeting minutes later Wednesday for insight into policymakers’ thinking on the economy and rates. Officials are expected to see three cuts, while markets are pricing in at least two reductions this year. Those bets could change with Friday's release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, a key inflation input for the Fed.

On the corporate calendar, earnings from DoorDash (DASH), eBay (EBAY), and Analog Devices (ADI) are set for release Wednesday.

You might recall, shares of transportation logistics player CH Robinson (CHRW) were run over last week out of the blue. The company had no earnings report. Execs weren't presenting at an investment banking conference.

Instead the stock was swept up into the AI sell-off as some random company called Algorhythm Holdings said it created software that made transport logistics way more efficient. I think the sell-off was very overdone, and in no way reflective of CH Robinson's impressive fundamentals.

The company is at the forefront of using AI in its business! In fact, it has stripped a ton of costs from its business because of its first mover advantage on using AI.

But you don't have to take my word for it.

I have CH Robinson CEO Dave Bozeman live on my show Opening Bid today at 9:45am. I expect Bozeman to fiercely defend his company, as he should.

Tune in here or on the Yahoo Finance mobile app.

Shares of The New York Times Co. (NYT) popped in premarket trading after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B, BRK-A) made a new multibillion-dollar investment in the publisher.

The fourth quarter move was seen as a vote of confidence in the NYT's strategy from Berkshire, which dumped holdings in dozens of newspapers in 2020. It's also one of Berkshire's last with Warren Buffett as CEO, after he handed the reins of the conglomerate to Greg Abel in January.

From Bloomberg:

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. slashed its stake in Amazon.com (AMZN) by more than 75% in the fourth quarter, while also building a stake in the New York Times Co., his last new bet as chief executive officer of the conglomerate.

Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire acquired 5.1 million shares of the media publishing company in the three months through December, a stake worth $351.7 million at yearend, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday.

... Also in the fourth quarter, Berkshire continued trimming its stakes in Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Apple Inc. (AAPL), bringing them to 7.1% and 1.5%, respectively. Buffett started cutting those positions in 2024.

Read more here.

Palo Alto (PANW) stock fell 7% before the bell on Wednesday after the company cut its full-year earnings outlook on Tuesday.

Western Digital (WDC) stock rose 2% during premarket hours on Wednesday following its annoucment that it will raise $3.17 billion by selling its stake in Sandisk (SNDK). Sandisk stock fell by 2% during premarket trading today.

SSR Mining (SSRM) stock rose by 7% before the bell on Wednesday after reporting higher fourth-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue during prior days trading. The mining company said it expects to see a 10% increase in its gold-equivalent production of 450,000 to 535,000 ounces from its Marigold, CC&V, Seabee and Puna operations.

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) rose in premarket trading as investors assessed fresh moves from the AI chip leader, including a boosted India AI build-out and the sale of its stake in chip tech firm Arm (ARM).

The highlight is news that Meta (META) has agreed to buy millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs alongside other Nvidia processors in the next few years, deepening their multiyear, multi-generational partnership.

Yahoo Finance's Daniel Howley reports:

The plan calls for Meta to use the products within its data centers for both training and running AI models.

Nvidia didn't reveal a dollar amount for the expanded deal, though it said that Meta will roll out the chips in its own data centers and lean on those available via Nvidia Cloud Partners. Nvidia's Cloud Partner program includes companies like CoreWeave (CRWV) and Crusoe, which host Nvidia chips for other companies to rent and use.

... In addition to the GPUs, Nvidia says Meta is rolling out its first large-scale Grace CPU-only servers with plans to launch Vera CPU-only systems in 2027. These would be similar to more traditional severs Meta operates using Intel chips and wouldn't include any GPUs.

That kind of move could prove problematic for Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD), which have dominated the CPU server space for decades.

Read more here.

Japan has announced that it plans to invest up to $36 billion in US oil, gas, and critical mineral projects. This investment is part of Tokyo's $550 billion commitment, which forms part of the trade agreement it struck with President Trump last year.

“Our MASSIVE Trade Deal with Japan has just launched!” Trump posted on Tuesday on social media. “The scale of these projects are so large, and could not be done without one very special word, TARIFFS.”

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said that the projects will help build more resilient supply chains through partnerships in crucial areas for economic security.

Bloomberg News reports:

“We believe this initiative is fully aligned with its core objectives: promoting mutual benefits between Japan and the United States, ensuring economic security, and fostering economic growth,” she wrote.

The most significant investment is a natural gas facility in Ohio that’s expected to generate 9.2 gigawatts of power, according to a statement from US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a massive project which Trump described as “the largest in History.”

Japan is expected to invest up to $33 billion in the gas plant, which will be led by SoftBank Group Corp. subsidiary SB Energy, according to a US Commerce Department fact sheet outlining the investments. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry listed SoftBank Group as the company involved in the project.

Read more here.

AP Finance reports:

California regulators said on Tuesday that Tesla (TSLA) had stopped misleading drivers about the safety of its cars and so has decided not to suspend its license to sell in the state for 30 days.

The decision by the California Department of Motor Vehicles comes after Elon Musk's electric vehicle maker was found by an administrative law judge last year to have misled drivers about the ability of Tesla cars to drive themselves in its use of the terms “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving.”

The judge had recommended that regulators suspend Tesla's license to sell cars for 30 days, but the regulators gave the company a 90-day window to make changes. They decided it had done that sufficiently to fix the deceptive marketing.

Tesla now uses the term “supervised” in references to its Full Self Driving and has stopped using Autopiolot in its marketing in the state.

Read more here.