US stocks split at the opening bell on Thursday as Nvidia's (NVDA) stellar earnings failed to wow investors and left Wall Street juggling growing worries over AI's potential for payoff and disruption.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up roughly 0.4%, following solid wins for stocks more broadly on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-exposed Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) lost 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.

Nvidia shares fell over 2% near the open, as the chip giant received a lukewarm response from investors despite big beats on quarterly revenue and profit, and guidance that also came in above expectations. But a lack of detail on drivers for the outlook — which doesn't include potential revenue out of China — left some on Wall Street asking questions about competitive threats and the staying power of AI buildout demand.

Fears of a AI bubble and the "AI scare trade" have buffeted stocks in recent weeks, with the technology's challenge to sectors such as legacy software coming to the fore. Salesforce (CRM) shares fell about 4% to continue an AI-driven sell-off after its revenue forecast fell short of estimates but picked up more than 2% at the open after CEO Marc Benioff tried to defuse sell-off worries.

Elsewhere in earnings, Big Three automaker Stellantis (STLA) posted a massive $26.billion full-year loss after an EV-related charge. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Dell (DELL), and CoreWeave (CRWV) highlight Thursday's docket.

On the macro front, initial jobless claims ticked up marginally over the previous week while continuing claims saw a small drop, signaling a somewhat stagnated economy as investors wait for the January wholesale inflation reading on Friday to help evaluate the odds of an interest-rate cut.

212,000 people filed initial jobless claims in the week ended Feb. 21, according to data released Thursday by the Department of Labor. The figure marks a slight increase from the previous week, in a sign of potential stagnation in the labor market even after an explosive January jobs report.

The initial jobless claims number is above the previous week's 208,000 initial claims but comes in below expectations. Economists had predicted 216,000 initial claims, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Continuing claims were 1.83 million for the week ended Feb. 14, notching a similar drop from the previous week's 1.87 million claims. Economists had estimated continuing claims of 1.86 million.

\\"It's a labor market more defined by its inactivity than its vigor,\\" ADP chief economist Nela Richardson told Bloomberg in televised comments Thursday morning. \\"It's very unusual to see the kind of caution we’ve seen from employers.\\"

Cloud computing provider Nutanix (NTNX) reported strong earnings and announced a multiyear deal with AMD (AMD) on Wednesday, sending the stock more than 15% higher in premarket trading on Thursday.

For the fiscal second quarter, Nutanix reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.56 for the quarter on revenue of $722.8 million. Wall Street analysts were looking for earnings per share of $0.44 on $709.7 million in revenue, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

For the full year, Nutanix said it expects revenue of $2.80 billion to $2.84 billion and a non-GAAP operating margin of 21% to 22%.

Nutanix's new multiyear partnership with AI chipmaker AMD also boosted shares on Thursday as the two companies seek to develop a platform for enterprise agentic AI. AMD said it will invest $250 million in Nutanix shares and joint R&D and go-to-market efforts, and the equity investment is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026.

AMD stock slid 1.5% following the announcement and earnings from its rival Nvidia (NVDA).

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From Bloomberg:

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) has been stuck in a range for the better part of four months, and investors are paying up to protect against the possibility that the next big move is down. To a growing number of strategists, that pessimism is cause to expect the opposite.

The change in mood among investors, particularly the retail crowd, arrives as the S&P 500 has churned below 7,000 for most of the year, defying predictions that a breakout is imminent. There are, of course, reasons for the stagnation. Artificial intelligence tools have led to big selloffs in a variety of sectors, trade policies remain opaque and geopolitical tensions are high.

The swirl of negative inputs prompted investors to pile into derivatives that pay out if the S&P 500 suffers a steep loss. Put-call skew, which measures the cost of buying downside protection compared to placing upside bets, jumped to a two-year high last week. Normalized two-month skew on the S&P 500 is now near the upper end of its five-year range.

Generally, when sentiment moves so far in one direction, strategists start to sense a contrarian signal.

... The data back up that view. An indicator of investor leverage by BNP Paribas SA that tracks metrics including ETF flows and futures-focused hedge fund strategies has ticked to lows last seen in November. But counterintuitively, such pessimistic positioning can be a buy signal.

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Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports:

Big Three automaker Stellantis (STLA) reported a massive full-year loss after taking a $26 billion EV-related charge, but saw improving second-half results, suggesting the company's turnaround under CEO Antonio Filosa may be working.

Stellantis — which counts brands like Ram, Jeep, Fiat, and Alfa Romeo in its product portfolio — reported second half net revenue of 79.25 billion euros ($93.47 billion), That was in range of the 78 billion to 80 billion euros ($91.87 to $94.23 billion) forecast, and 10% higher than the 71.86 billion euros ($84.64 billion) reported a year ago.

Stellantis posted a second-half adjusted operating income loss of 1.38 billion euros ($1.63 billion), also in range of the 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion euros ($1.41 billion to 1.77 billion) forecast. That was a reversal of the 185 million euro ($218 million) gain reported in the second half of 2024, which itself was a massive drop compared to the 10.2 billion euro ($12 billion) profit reported in 2023.

... For the full year, Stellantis reported a net loss of 22.3 billion euros ($26.3 billion), due to 25.4 billion euros ($29.96 billion) of \\"unusual charges,\\" the company said.

Stellantis stock was little changed in premarket trade in New York.

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Yahoo Finance's Jake Conley reports:

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Trump touted an energy industry strengthened by the success of his \\"Drill, baby, drill\\" policy, a dual mandate of more hydrocarbon drilling and lower gas prices.

A year into Trump's second term, oil and gas production is at or near all-time highs, and gasoline prices average below $3 per gallon nationally.

But for the US oil and gas industry, the president's ambitions have come at a cost.

\\"Capital efficiencies and returns drive our investment decisions,\\" said an oil and gas operator responding to the Dallas Federal Reserve's fourth quarter energy survey.

\\"If economic conditions worsen, drilling and completion activities will cease in 2026.\\"

... Even as Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX), the country's largest integrated oil and gas operators, increased their production and beat analyst estimates on top-line revenue, both companies recorded year-on-year declines in annual profit as the oil glut depressed prices, shrinking their margins.

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From Bloomberg:

Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), the dominant maker of artificial intelligence processors, failed to impress investors with its latest sales forecast, signaling that concerns about an overheated AI economy will continue to dog the company.

Though the chipmaker delivered a 73% surge in fourth-quarter revenue and a first-quarter outlook that easily beat the average Wall Street estimate, Nvidia shares fell as much as 1.5% during a conference call with analysts. The stock was up less than 1% in premarket trading on Thursday.

It was a stark reminder of the skepticism now surrounding Nvidia. After explosive sales growth turned the chipmaker into the world’s most valuable company, investors are seeking stronger assurances that booming AI sales are here to stay.

“By most measures, Nvidia delivered a solid set of results,” analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a note after the results. “Even so, the stock response suggests investors were left wanting more.”

CEO Jensen Huang pushed back on the concerns during Wednesday’s call, arguing that customers are already making money from their newly acquired computing power. That’s why clients will keep investing at elevated levels, he said.

“You need compute capacity, and that translates directly to growth, and that translates directly to revenues,” Huang said. “I’m confident their cash flows are growing.”

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From Reuters:

Nvidia (NVDA) may have made its immense fortune on the back of specialized graphics processing units (GPUs) used to power artificial intelligence servers, but CEO Jensen Huang is increasingly professing his love for the more generalist CPU.

The CPU, or central processing unit, was for ‌decades traditionally viewed as the main brain of a computer — a product most associated with Intel (INTC) or sometimes Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Huang is fond of saying ‌that where once 90% of computing used to happen on CPUs and 10% on chips like his, the ratio had flipped in recent years.

But the CPU is now making a comeback - increasingly seen as an equivalent ​if not better option as AI companies shift from training their models to deploying them - a shift that Nvidia plans to be a big part of.

\\"We love CPUs as well as GPUs,\\" Huang said on a call with analysts on Wednesday for the company's fourth-quarter results.

He assured them that Nvidia was not only ready for the CPU's return to the spotlight, but also that Nvidia's own CPU offerings for data centers, first released in 2023, would outcompete rivals.

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Marriott Vacations' (VAC) stock rose 8% before the bell on Thursday after reporting fourth quarter earnings, with revenue exceeding analyst expectations.

Trade Desk (TTD) stock sank 16% during premarket hours today. The technology platform reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.59 per share, beating estimates and also reported a rise in revenue. But it forecast first quarter revenue of $678 million, which fell below analyst expectations.

Zoom (ZM) stock fell 3% before the bell on Thursday after forecasting quarterly profit below Wall Street estimates on Wednesday.

Shares of Salesforce (CRM) fell almost 4% in premarket trading after the software company's fiscal 2027 revenue forecast came in below Wall Street expectations on Wednesday.

The San Francisco-based company flagged sluggish spending on enterprise business software ‌as it invests heavily in its AI platform to ​drive up demand.

Reuters reports:

[Salesforce] expects annual revenue in the ‌range of $45.80 billion ⁠to $46.20 billion, with the midpoint coming in slightly below an estimate of $46.06 billion, ⁠according to data compiled by LSEG.

... The forecast shows that ⁠demand for business software has remained under pressure from global economic uncertainty as companies pare back tech budgets, ⁠choosing to focus on essential spending and cost-cutting.

As Salesforce pours billions into machine learning, investors are worried that the development of new technology from ​startups ​could disrupt traditional software operations.

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Bloomberg reports:

A 20% slide in Baidu Inc.'s (BIDU) shares over the past month serves as a crucial reminder for companies in China’s rapidly intensifying artificial intelligence race: investors are demanding tangible results.

The search engine specialist kicks off December-quarter earnings for China’s Big Tech on Thursday, amid growing concern that its AI investments are not translating into a meaningful growth driver quickly enough. Despite strength in the cloud business, analysts predict both revenue and profit to fall year on year, hurt by continued weakness in the core advertising business that’s closely tied to the broader economy.

With markets fixated on AI, positive management commentary or evidence that capital spending is bearing fruit will be crucial to help stem an equity rout that’s eroded $11 billion in market value since a three-year high on Jan. 23.

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Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley reports:

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 provided Q1 guidance of $76.44 billion to $79.56 billion, above Wall Street's estimate of $72.8 billion. Nvidia shares were up more than 2% in after-hours trade.

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.

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