US stocks recovered from steeper losses on Thursday but still broadly fell 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 tech-exposed Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) lost 1.2%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell about 0.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose above the flat line, following solid wins for stocks more broadly on Wednesday.

Nvidia shares fell over 5% 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.

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 an 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 turned higher as CEO Marc Benioff tried to defuse sell-off worries after its revenue forecast fell short of estimates.

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, 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.

The iShares software ETF IGV just survived its fourth test of the critical 76–80 area.

It’s carving out a long-tailed weekly candle and rebounding to 82 and change — about 6% off the lows. This “rejection tail” suggests buyers are starting to defend this group after months of pummelling.

Checking in on this week's software heatmap, the green boxes are dominating amid a few dark red soar spots. That's as the AI narrative shifted from \\"AI eats software companies\\" to \\"AI partners with software companies.\\"

The breadth is showing up in the patterns emerging in the yet-to-be completed weekly candles. See the bullish engulfings in Salesforce (CRM), Paycom (PAYC), FactSet (FDS), and Autodesk (ADSK).

Then check out the juicy long tails in Thomson Reuters (TRI), Workday (WDAY), Zscaler (ZS), Intuit (INTU), Fair Isaac (FICO), ADP (ADP), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Datadog (DDOG), Cognizant (CTSH), CrowdStrike (CRWD), and GoDaddy (GDDY).

The price action is far from an all-clear, but a step in the right direction for the bulls.

Yahoo Finance's Jennifer Schonberger reports:

The Federal Reserve’s top banking cop told the US Senate on Thursday that she’s looking to unveil retooled bank regulations before the end of March, with a focus on boosting mortgage lending.

Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, said the central bank has arrived at a consensus with other regulators on Basel III, a regulatory framework for banks developed in response to the financial crisis. Bowman said it will include a retooling of capital requirements to encourage traditional banks to get back into mortgage lending.

Read more here.

As investors continue to review Nvidia's (NVDA) blowout results delivered after the bell on Wednesday, Yahoo Finance's Daniel Howley points out that Nvidia's networking business deserves a closer look.

He writes:

While the bulk of data center revenue came from GPU and CPU sales, which Nvidia refers to as its compute segment, $11 billion came from the company's networking group, up 263% year over year.

Nvidia's networking business has become an unsung hero within its data center business over the years. And despite its relatively small size compared to the company's computer arm, it's gaining more attention.

\\"We're … now the largest networking company in the world,\\" CEO Jensen Haung said during Nvidia's earnings call.

The AI giant's networking business can be broken down into three main categories: scale up, scale out, and scale across.

Read more here.

Mortgage rates fell below 6% for the first time in three and a half years, tracking a decline in Treasury yields since the beginning of February.

Rates' move to the 5% range has sparked hopes that activity could pick up in the frozen market, as affordability issues have sidelined prospective homebuyers.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell three basis points to 5.98%, the lowest level since Sept. 8, 2022, while the 15-year fixed rose nine basis points to 5.44%.

Yahoo Finance's Hal Bundrick reports:

Three months of a slow interest rate decline have filtered through the mortgage industry, with increasing reports of home loan rates finally slipping below 6%. Freddie Mac is the latest rate aggregator to record a sub-6% result, with a 30-year fixed rate of 5.98%.

The report mirrors the Yahoo Finance weekly survey of lenders, which has reported a growing number of mortgage issuers with rates in the 5% range since early November.

“For the first time in three and a half years, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped into the 5% range, falling even lower than last week's milestone,” Sam Khater, chief economist of Freddie Mac, said in a release. “This rate, combined with the improving availability of homes for sale, is meaningful and will drive more potential buyers into the market for spring homebuying season.”

Read more here.

Poorly received earnings from Nvidia (NVDA) sent the broader market into a downturn through Thursday morning trading, but a handful of other stocks are seeing gains after strong earnings reports.

Quantum computing leader IonQ (IONQ) and global travel company Marriott Vacations Worldwide (VAC) both beat analyst estimates on revenue and adjusted earnings, and their shares traded up by 20% and 15%, respectively.

Celsius Holdings (CELH), the global energy drink maker, also beat estimates across its earnings and saw shares gain 6%.

Direct-to-consumer eyewear provider Warby Parker (WRBY) missed analyst estimates on both top-line revenue and bottom-line adjusted earnings. However, the company reported its first full year of positive net income, and the stock has gained 22%

Shortly after Nvidia's Q4 earnings dropped Wednesday, the stock (NVDA) popped nearly 4% to touch a three-month high — then faded fast.

By Thursday, it's down nearly 5% — a 9% round trip.

Anyone who watches Nvidia's earnings tape shouldn't be surprised. The stock quickly punched through a multiweek ceiling in late August 2025, before tumbling about 10% in a few days — establishing a technical \\"floor\\" that's been tested three times since (and held).

Similarly, in November 2024, it tagged a post-earnings record intraday high — then slid 40% over the next four months.

Prior to that, the August 2023 earnings also propelled Nvidia to a record high, followed by three months of sideways price action.

Then there's the November 2021 earnings reaction, which led to a record high a few days later that held for 18 months through the 2022 bear market.

Bottom line: the trend is still sideways. Below $170 invites sellers above $200 pulls in momentum buyers.

The same investor dissatisfaction that sent Nvidia (NVDA) shares falling 5% in morning trading on Thursday is also weighing on the wider semiconductor industry, and an ETF tracking the sector (SOXX) is now down 3.5% on the morning.

Nvidia reported top-line and bottom-line results for the quarter healthily above analyst estimates and guided above expectations, but the numbers weren't enough to satisfy investors. Some on Wall Street saw weakness in a lack of clarity around future growth drivers.

Major semiconductor industry players were trading down in sympathy. Broadcom (AVGO) and Micron (MU) sold off by more than 6% and more than 5%, respectively. Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shed a slightly lesser 4% as investors' AI doubts kicked the sector.

Before Nvidia's results, the sector had been doing well as a whole, up 16% year-to-date and up 40% over the past six months. But Nvidia's results have become a key bellwether for the AI trade that can trigger major moves on the market's doubts or exuberance.

Horrible quarter. Not so great earnings call. And now a 26% staff reduction.

That sums up the earnings day last night for C3.ai (AI).

The stock is regaining ground following my interview on Yahoo Finance with new CEO Steve Ehikian this morning. I didn't hear a ton of positives from Steve, however. I think an inflection point in sales is well out in the distance.

Salesforce (CRM) has reversed this morning after the initial post-earnings sell-off last night.

Proceed with caution.

Good point on the company this morning from the Guggenheim team:

“We calculate that organic, constant currency growth [for Salesforce] was about 9.0% in FY25 and 7.2% in FY26, while guidance implies about 6.8% in FY27. Management recognizes this slippery slope and therefore needs to invest, which means less margin and profit, but we believe this is the right thing to do. The only problem is that this will require investment in innovation, something that Salesforce hasn’t done much of over the last two decades.”

Shares in Nvidia (NVDA) sank as much as 3.5% in the early going of Thursday's trading session before slightly paring losses in a continued sign that investors were unimpressed by the AI chip leader's results.

The chipmaker not only solidly beat analyst estimates on the top and bottom line, but also guided above expectations. In the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Jan. 25, revenue gained 73% to $68.1 billion. Profit was $1.62 a share, excluding certain items. Analysts had predicted $65.9 billion in sales and $1.53 a share in earnings.

Fiscal first-quarter revenue will be about $78 billion, the chipmaker said. Though the average prediction was $72.8 billion, some analysts had projected numbers approaching $80 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

And yet, investor sentiment was weighed down in a hard-to-impress market by what some on Wall Street saw as a lack of clarity around where the drivers of continued growth are going to come from.

“We aren’t sure what else investors want to hear at this point, Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said in a note after results, adding that her team \\"like[s] what we heard.\\"

The US stocks opened Thursday's trading session on mixed footing as Nvidia's (NVDA) earnings report underwhelmed the market after the bell on Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) gained 0.4%, the only major index to move up. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-exposed Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell by roughly 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively.

Elsewhere in earnings, Stellantis (STLA) recorded a $26.billion full-year loss Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) reported drops in revenue and earnings per share. Dell Technologies (DELL) and CoreWeave (CRWV) are still to come on Thursday's docket.

On the macro front, initial jobless claims ticked up marginally from the previous week, while continuing claims fell slightly, signaling a somewhat stagnant 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).

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.

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.”

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.