S&P 500, Nasdaq futures rise as Fed rate call looms

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US stock futures rose on Monday ahead of a key Federal Reserve rate decision, as investors set aside worries about stalled interest rates to focus on hopes around AI developments.

Futures on the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) added roughly 0.6%, while those on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (^NDX) led the way higher with an almost 1% gain. Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) futures hovered just above the flatline, signaling a potential comeback from Friday’s loss.

Stocks have notched two weeks of declines in a row as hotter-than-expected inflation and other data surprises dented faith in a policy pivot by the Fed. All eyes are now on the Fed’s March meeting starting Tuesday, watching for whether policymakers still expect to cut rates three times in 2024. Expectations are for the central bank to keep rates unchanged at a 23-year high in its decision on Wednesday.

Techs were on the rise, buoyed by AI buzz ahead of the kickoff of chipmaker’s Nvidia’s (NVDA) annual conference on Monday. Meanwhile, Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) shares climbed after a Bloomberg report that Apple (AAPL) is in talks to build Google’s Gemini AI engine into its next iPhone.

But trading on the Nasdaq, which hosts shares in Apple and other tech giants, was disrupted for at least two hours early Monday thanks to a technical glitch that affected connectivity and matching orders.

Investors are also looking out for the public market debut of Reddit on Thursday under the ticker “RDDT” for insight into whether the market for new issues is reviving. The IPO is said to be as much as five times oversubscribed.

Elsewhere, the market is widely expecting the Bank of Japan to ditch its negative-rate policy and hike on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei (^N225) jumped 2% as investors welcomed the prospect.

Live1 update

Mon, March 18, 2024 at 5:30 AM MDT

How Nvidia is seen by investors could change again this week

Ask most holders of Nvidia’s (NVDA) stock what the company does and they will probably say “chip-maker.”

But that definition may change this week after Nvidia’s GTC conference, which starts today. And it has to change if Nvidia’s market cap is to continue to expand beyond its eye-popping $2.2 trillion level seen today.

Good point on this front from Stifel’s tech analyst Ruben Roy:

“While we think that it has become evident that Nvidia is no longer a “chip” company, the company’s hardware innovations, roadmap, and time-to-market expectations are critically important given the emergence of several layers of potential competition including AMD (AMD) GPU platforms, various AI accelerator alternatives and accelerating efforts from most large CSPs to develop captive AI silicon. Given recent press reports, we would expect Nvidia to address the potential for further diversification of its technology road-map with potential custom application specific silicon offerings. On this front, while we think that this sort of technology expansion would make sense, we would view this as a long-term strategic effort given the time and investment required to develop an ASIC business.”

Coverage Reminder

Yahoo Finance’s resident Nvidia expert — tech editor Dan Howley – is stationed at GTC. Be sure to follow his reporting on our platform and on X @DanielHowley. Give his GTC preview a read here.

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S&P 500, Nasdaq futures rise as Fed rate call looms

How Nvidia is seen by investors could change again this week